


Nemesis (book four)

by TheDarkOne



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9583301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkOne/pseuds/TheDarkOne
Summary: When the away team discover a huge alien ship, nobody anticipated that the ship would become a deadly threat to them. But not only the foreign ship causes trouble, the relationship between some people is getting more and more complicated."Nemesis" is a sequel to "Replaced", "Harmony in minor" and "Broken".





	1. Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Ellen, who did a marvellous job by correcting not even grammer and spelling but put the final touches to it.

The slight moment of disorientation when the ship drops out of hyperspace felt, for most of the people on board Destiny, like the moment when your stomach drops at the peak of a roller coaster.  
Dr. Rush was used to it though, and annoyed by the unscheduled stop. With a sigh he paused his work, and pressed some buttons to see why they had stopped.  
The very low energy level made him believe that the ship found a star to refill at, but there was nothing out there. Except for a Stargate. Since they still had enough supplies on board, he hadn't reckoned that the ship would stop at a gate.  
"Dr. Rush, please report to the gateroom," Colonel Young's voice came briskly over the radio.  
The scientist confirmed and headed to the gateroom.  
On the way Eli caught up. He had obviously been summoned too.  
"I hope we're lucky this time," the young man started to babble away lively whilst walking.  
Rush frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked. "What should we find except for nourishment and water?"  
"Well, for once basic materials for repairs, alien technology…"  
Without warning Rush stopped so that Eli almost bumped into his shoulder. The Scot turned and glared at him.  
"Since when do we let the ship drop out of FTL for such unimportant matter and waste our time? We haven’t even programmed such search parameters into the ship's database!"  
Eli twisted the corner of his mouth quickly and looked a bit sheepish. "Well, I have. Colonel Young ordered me to," he confessed.  
Rush looked daggers at him but didn't say anything as he continued on his way angrily. Eli followed him.  
_Of course it's Young again_ , Rush thought furiously. _What is he hoping to find? A highly developed society who can teleport him back to earth?_  
"Uhm, Dr. Rush." Eli, almost had to run to keep up with him. "I thought you knew," he apologized.  
"No,” Rush barked and stormed into the gateroom. The gate was dialing and Rush headed quickly to the console while Eli grabbed a kino from the pile and waited.  
"Dr. Rush," Young greeted him with a brief nod.  
The wormhole opened and Eli sent the kino on it’s way.  
"What exactly do you think you'll find there, Colonel?" Rush growled, unable to restrain himself.  
Young looked puzzled by the scientist’s harsh tone.  
"Food, like always, Dr. Rush. Water, maybe some other things we could use on board," he said as calmly as possible.  
Even after two months it was strange to him, that the crew treated him the same as they had before the A.I. (which had been uploaded by Dr. Rush without Young's permission into Destiny’s main computer) had put him into a nightmare scenario. The memories still haunted him every night.  
"Things completely useless for us maybe?" the scientist responded bitterly.  
Young sighed quietly. "I am sorry, Dr. Rush," he said with some effort, trying not to annoy the Scot any more than he already had. "I thought Mr. Wallace would tell you what I asked of him. I just thought it wouldn't be that bad to have a look for other stuff. Our everyday objects have a shelf life. If we're able to find some replacement, fine with me. That's why I asked Eli to add some more search parameters to our priority list. And it seems, Destiny found something."  
Rush just glowered at him and said nothing. Although he didn't want to admit it, for once the Colonel might have had a good idea. They did have to replace or repair some things. They were also in dire need of some medical supplies, even clothes and dishes. After all they still had to live for some time on this ship.  
Young was wise enough to hide his small triumph from the scientist, who had gone silent.  
Before Rush could turn their conversation into an argument, Young approached Eli, who was reading the data the kino had transmitted. The first picture on it’s own was causing him to get excited.  
The eye was floating above a hill, showing a small city on a plain.  
"Lifesigns?" Young asked at once, although he could clearly see only ruins. His eyes briefly wandered over to the scientist.  
_This should placate him eventually_ , he thought, and he was right.  
Rush pressed some buttons excitedly and answered before Eli could.  
"No, none at all. Not even potential specimens of fauna. But to be one hundred per cent certain I'd have to go to the city for a closer look. The kino is much too far away from the edge of the city to receive any usable data."  
"Then why don't we go and have a look for ourselves?" Young said and gave Rush a slight smile. The scientist just nodded.  
It didn't take long for teams to be gathered in front of the gate.  
"Dr. Rush, you're with my team." Lt. Scott was standing in front of him in full gear and checked his weapon. "We're heading directly for the city. Are you ready?"  
"Yes," the scientist answered and put his backpack on.  
Scott nodded. "Okay, Team One, explore and secure the city. Team Two, look for supplies, Teams Three and Four cover our right and left. Report any unusual activity immediately. Our goal is the large hangar and building in the open space."  
The Lieutenant waited a moment for questions.  
"Let's go!" he shouted when there were none, and walked through the gate, his weapon at the ready, followed by the other soldiers in his team and, lastly, Dr. Rush.  
A dry, but pleasantly warm wind was blowing over the ridge as they climbed down carefully. The path they found, leading directly into the city, had doubtless been kept immaculate for ages. But throughout the years nature crept through the marble-like flagstones, creating gaps and bumps. Another sign that the place had been abandoned.  
Rush had taken a kino with him, which he sent ahead. It was still only transmitting images of the ruins, and not picking up a single life-sign.  
It took them almost an hour to reach the edge of the city. The soldiers were even more on the alert and slowed down a bit.  
"Anything from the kino?" Lt. Scott asked quietly. Rush shook his head.  
"Team One, this is Team Two," Greer's voice sounded from Scott's radio. "We’ve moved into the city as well. No lifesigns at all."  
"Copy that Team Two. Proceed."  
"Yes, Sir."  
Dr. Rush, who had been only half listening let the kino climb so they could find a way towards the center of the city. Although the city was small, Rush reckoned that they would need more than an hour to reach the hangar.  
The soldier to his left entered a house carefully. The door was halfway open and hung crooked on its hinges. Scott kept the environment in mind and waited outside.  
"We should go," Dr. Rush said, impatient to see the city center. If there was interesting technology here, they wouldn't find it at the outskirts.  
"Just a moment, Dr. Rush. We just want to see if we get an indication of the people who lived here," the Lieutenant explained.  
"If you want to find out what happened here, you’d be better off looking in a government building. Which is exactly what the one we’re heading to could be."  
Scott’s reply was interrupted by the soldier exiting the building.  
"Nothing, Sir. Just pieces of furniture. No skeletons or remains that could tell us who lived here. The technology is similar to ours, maybe slightly more advanced. There was a glass panel with embedded circuits attached to the wall."  
"Probably some kind of holographic technology, like Destiny has," Rush suggested, and started walking towards the house. He was stopped by Scott.  
"I thought you wanted to go the center as quickly as possible, Dr. Rush. I’m sure there are more of these things there."  
The scientist scowled but stayed outside.  
"Have you found a way?" Scott asked.  
Rush checked his DHD display. There did seem to be a visible route..  
"I think so. This way," he said, pointing towards a wide street.  
"Let's go," Scott ordered, and they marched on.

They didn’t encounter anything living along the way. The buildings began to get bigger as they walked, and large shop windows invited them to look inside.  
Occasionally they discovered foreign lettering, and entered some of the shops to take a look at the items inside..  
Dr. Rush was able to identify some things and their functions, but they found nothing that could be useful for them on Destiny. The soldier had been right though – this technology was more advanced than their own.  
When the other teams radioed in they reported more of the same.  
The closer they got to the center, the denser and larger the buildings became. Some time later, the third team reported that they had found some dishes and plates made of a hard, unfamiliar material. Scott ordered them to take some.  
Around the next corner they could finally see the hangar with the attached building.  
They had been walking for an hour. In that time, another team had reported that they found what seemed to be a hospital, and would start to search the building for medical supplies. Lt. Johansen was sent to join them, Rush preferring to stay with Scott.  
Team One turned onto an avenue which led directly to the square that was their destination.  
Dr. Rush set a brisk pace, which Lt. Scott wasn't very keen about it, but he adapted without relaxing his attention.  
Finally they entered the square and looked almost reverently at the huge building ahead of them.  
On their right, Team Three appeared and approached them.  
Dr. Rush headed straight for a door without waiting for the soldiers to catch up.  
"Find anything?" Scott asked Team Three’s team, not taking his eyes off Rush.  
"Just the dishes," the soldier said, and took a bowl out of his backpack to show to Scott.  
"We can use more of those. Inform Colonel Young, maybe he can send another team."  
"Yes, Sir!"  
"Meanwhile, we'll have a look what's in this hangar," Scott said and gestured towards the building with his thumb.  
Rush had reached the door already. He looked at his DHD and pressed some buttons on the control panel on the wall to his left.  
"Can you open the door?" Scott asked when he and his team reached Rush.  
"I don't know yet," Rush said without looking at the lieutenant. "It's an automatic door but the whole city is without power." He looked more closely at the panel, then put the DHD in his back pocket and dug his fingers beneath the edge of the panel, but he couldn’t manage to remove it on his own.  
"Lieutenant, could you give me a hand please?" "Are you sure it's removable?" the lieutenant asked skeptically, but tried to help anyway.  
"Quite sure," Rush said breathlessly, both of them pulling as hard as they could. Suddenly the panel broke away, causing Rush and Scott to nearly lose their balance. A handle in the wall appeared.  
"There we go! A manual device," the Scot said satisfied and pulled firmly. This time he was lucky immediately. The handle could be operated easily and the door swung open.  
A gust of stale air hit them and took away their breath for a moment.  
"Maybe we should wait for some fresh air to get in there," Scott said.  
"I'll send the kino in," Rush said, not happy about having to wait outside. At least he could look around with the kino.  
The kino had barely entered the building when Rush switched to night vision. The entrance was empty but there were several ships farther back in the hangar.  
"This is a spaceship hangar," Scott said, surprised and excited.  
Rush navigated the kino deeper inside, alongside the ships and then even the scientist gasped. In comparison to the gigantic ship, they could now see at the end, the other vessels were tiny. Rush guessed the alien ship was almost three-quarters the size of Destiny.  
"This is unbelievable," Scott whispered and activated his radio to inform Colonel Young about the discovery.  
"Go inside and look around, Lieutenant." Young sounded excited."But with caution."  
"Of course, Sir," Scott replied.  
"And Lieutenant," Young's voice went down to a whisper, "look especially for weapons. We really could use some reinforcements."  
There was a short pause as the Lieutenant glanced surreptitiously at his colleagues, then he said quietly, "I understand, Sir."  
"Stay in radio contact. I'm on my way with my team."  
"Bring Mr. Wallace and Miss Hansen along, will you?" Rush interrupted the Colonel speaking into Scott's radio.  
"Of course, Dr. Rush. We’ll bring some transport crates as well. Just in case. Young out."  
The CO closed the channel and Rush gave Scott a knowing look, but said nothing. Like the Lieutenant he was very well aware that they had to be capable of defending themselves, and the ammunition wouldn't last forever.

After fifteen minutes, Rush couldn't wait any longer and entered the hangar. Although the smaller runabouts were interesting as well, Rush headed for the huge ship at the end. The kino had discovered a potential entrance and, to Rush's astonishment, a faint light was gleaming on the panel.  
"The ship seems to have an independent energy source," he noted, and pressed a button after briefly studying the symbols. At first nothing happened, and Rush almost feared they might have to open the airlock by force, but then he could hear a faint rumble followed by a hissing and the door swung open.  
The air escaping the ship smelled, to their surprise, fresher than the air in the hangar.  
Scott and his men entered the ship first. Rush confirmed that the kino couldn't detect any lifesigns, and they grouped up in teams of two to search the ship.  
Rush was quick in finding the bridge, but it wasn't responsively any longer. Though they had managed to open the door, the ship’s energy was low and would soon be depleted.  
_Almost the same as Destiny when we first arrived_ , Rush thought angrily. _Fortunately we're not in space, and I have some time. At least until Destiny jumps to FTL again._  
He knew he wouldn't manage to power up the systems, let alone get the ship off the ground, but the energy should be sufficient to look through the database and study the technology. Rush started looking up the propulsion system, from which he strongly hoped to get something.  
Eventually he was distracted by voices and approaching steps.  
"Dr. Rush?" he recognized Eli’s voice. Seconds later the young man appeared in the doors, followed by Melody.  
"What took you so long?" Rush muttered instead of a greeting, and gestured to the two chairs in front of him, which stood at wide console further into the room. They took the hint, and while they sat down and connected the equipment they had brought along, Eli said "We came as soon as we could. We got a little lost."  
"Very interesting, Mr. Wallace," Rush said with obvious boredom in his voice. "Since you’ve finally arrived, try to access the ship’s database. The energy won't last for long. Look especially for life support, shields and other technologies which might be useful for us. The engine looks promising. It's more complex than the ancient FTL drive and very useful, if I had just enough time to study it…"  
Rush continued monologuing, but both Eli and Melody were used to it, and didn’t pay him much attention, though they were also curious about what they might find there .

Lt. Scott and PFC Harper walked down the corridors of the ship for almost two hours.  
"I don't know, Sir. I don't like it," Harper said, looking around nervously.  
Scott sighed softly to himself. Until now he hadn't had much to do with the private, but he was rumoured to be a coward. He was starting to believe it. There was nothing wrong with being cautious, but Harper wailed constantly and looked around so often that Scott was beginning to wonder why the man hadn't gotten a stiff neck yet.  
"Dr. Rush assured us more than once that there are no life signs at all. Now pull yourself together and look for weapon chambers. There's no one else here except for us."  
Scott's patience was quickly running out, and he made a mental note to leave Harper on Destiny whenever possible.  
The young Private kept quiet and his cheeks started to burn at the reprimand. Although Dr. Rush had assured them that no one else was on board, he knew this wasn't right. He clearly felt observed. He swallowed and forced himself to keep his eyes straight ahead so he wouldn’t annoy the lieutenant.  
Scott opened a door and cried out in delight.  
"See? I think we found it!" he let Harper have a look inside. The lieutenant was right, he had obviously found the armory.  
"Get the others down here," Scott ordered.  
"Yes, Sir," the PFC said, and radioed the Colonel before heading back to find the other teams.  
After Harper had led Colonel Young personally to the armory, he was ordered to find another soldier and bring down the empty crates.  
Unlike Harper, his comrade was extremely curious and looked in nearly every chamber on their way down to see if he could find anything else.  
"Oh come on," Harper said when the other PFC strayed off for the third time to open a door and look inside.  
"Hey, I think I found something what might bring joy to the sour old man," his voice came from somewhere inside. 'Sour old man' meant Dr. Rush, of course, who had earned that nickname within the lower ranks.  
Harper sighed and entered. His eyes widened when he realized that Private Dunsten had probably just found the control room.  
"We should inform Colonel Young and Dr. Rush about this," Harper said, awestruck, and grabbed his radio. He told Colonel Young, who ordered him to tell Rush and hurry up with the crates.  
Rush appeared a few minutes later and practically lunged at the controls. Private Dunsten, who was getting bored, had started studying the controls. He accidentally brushed some when Rush asked him if he’d touched anything, and the ship came to life..  
With a startled cry he whirled around and touched a hot conduit, which burned his skin.  
Rush looked at him, dismissed the injury as minor, and returned to focusing on the controls. At the same moment, the ship’s energy was depleted, and everything went dark.  
"What happened now?" Harper asked, as he looked after Dunsten’s burn. He turned on his flashlight. A moment later Young's voice came from Rush's radio.  
"Dr. Rush, what happened to the light?"  
The scientist took out his own flashlight and answered, shining the light over the console.  
"It seems that the last energy resources were just wasted for a pointless activation of the engines. We have to make sure that we get off the ship quickly. Life support is offline and an open door isn’t going to refresh the air fast enough."  
Young heard the anger in Rush's voice. He wasn't happy about the incident either, but at least they wouldn't leave empty handed.  
"How much time do we have before the air runs out?"  
"Approximately fifteen minutes."  
"All right. Make sure you get out of here. Destiny will jump back into Hyperspace soon anyway."  
Rush didn't answer, instead pointing his flashlight directly into the face of the unlucky person who had activated the system by accident.  
"I'm sorry, Doctor," he apologized immediately and looked down, his hand still hurting badly.  
"See to it you get back to Destiny – and out of my sight!" Rush just said.  
"Yes, Sir," Dunsten replied, relieved, and hurried out of the room.  
"Doc?" Eli called Rush over the radio. "The energy on the bridge is completely gone now."  
Rush sighed and grimaced at Eli’s statement of the obvious.  
"Yes, Mr. Wallace. Thank you for letting me know.” He replied sarcastically. “Grab your gear and get off the ship. We're going to run out of air soon."  
"Understood, Doc."  
"Bloody idiot," Rush mumbled in reference to Dunsten, and looked around the control room. Maybe he'd find an emergency power supply. He had to at least try to get access to the ship's database again.  
The few precious minutes he was still able to breathe passed much too quickly and Rush didn't find anything. When his head started to pound he hurried to get off the ship too.

"Where's Dr. Rush?" asked Eli, who was waiting at the ship's entrance with Melody. Beside him stood the soldiers, who had managed to fill three crates with weapons and carry them outside.  
"He has to be inside still," Melody said, worried. Eventually, the Scot appeared at the shuttle doors. He stopped and grabbed the doorframe, taking deep breaths.  
"Dr. Rush!" Melody cried and hurried over to him, but Rush shook his head.  
"I'm fine," he said, and the young woman backed off.  
"What were you doing in there, Dr. Rush?" Colonel Young asked, slightly upset. This was a close shave.  
"Was lost," Rush said dryly, and offered the Colonel no further explanation.  
Of course, the CO knew that wasn't true, but he wasn't in the mood to probe. The stubborn scientist was back again and nothing else mattered. He just glared at him and said, "We're heading back to the gate."  
Rush looked longingly to the ship, and followed the others. The incident had cost him four hours, and he knew for sure that the Colonel wouldn't be willing to let him try to power up the ship. But maybe he could investigate the shuttlepods…  
"Colonel Young!" He shouted, and quickened his steps to catch up with the Colonel, who was leading the party with Lieutenant Scott.  
As soon as Young heard Rush shout his name he looked at Scott and rolled his eyes before stopping and turning around to face the Scot.  
"Yes, Dr. Rush," he said quite calmly. He could only image what the scientist wanted.  
"I'll stay with my team and have a look at one of the small vessels. Maybe there's an energy source we can use for the ship."  
Young said nothing for a moment. He had reckoned that Rush would ask to be allowed to return to the large ship, but he hadn't thought about investigating the shuttlepods. He took a moment to think about it. On one hand, he felt uneasy leaving personnel behind, even for a few hours, especially since they had witnessed that these old space cruisers weren't just harmless piles of junk. On the other hand, after finding the cache of weapons, he was curious about what else Rush and his team may be able to find.  
"Very well, Dr. Rush. I'll leave some of my people for protection. Should you find anything we could use on board, bring it back with you. But don’t do anything risky. We're on a planet where the inhabitants vanished. We still don't know how or why. Bear in mind that the reason for their disappearance could still be here," Young appealed to him urgently.  
"Yes, yes, Colonel, if you have to post some guards then by all means do it. But the kino didn't detect any life signs nor radiation or anything dangerous. And who knows, maybe we'll find something in the ship's log, if there is something like that of course, that will tell us what happened here."  
Young gave him another sharp look. "Two hours, Dr. Rush. Not a minute longer. You also need to get back to the gate in time."  
"But two hours…" the scientist started to object but Young cut him short.  
"Two hours or none. Your choice."  
Rush pressed his lips together and gave him one of his famous Rush-looks. But finally he nodded.  
"Two hours. Mr. Wallace! Miss Hansen!" he shouted over his shoulder and the addressed persons tried to make sure to follow him quickly to one of the vessels.  
Young turned to Lieutenant Scott. "Lieutenant, see to it that it'll be just two hours and make sure that nothing happens to them. Although Dr. Rush is convinced that nothing's alive here, I am not."  
"Yes, Sir," Scott said, and beckoned two men to approach. Young summoned the rest and headed towards the gate.  
The small ship was technically not anywhere near the big one. This was the first, the scientist noticed. Moreover, it seemed to be designed for flights within the atmosphere, even if it had a primitive type of life support. With the help of Eli he managed to get an obsolete generator to work again, which created just enough power to bring the ship back to minimal life. Melody downloaded as much data as she could before the generator died completely.  
Rush rummaged around in the ship (the data could not be deciphered before they were back on Destiny) and the more systems he found, the more confused he became. Who were these inhabitants who had built so many primitive vessels and one highly developed one? Or had they not built it at all? Had they been the victims of an invasion? But why was there only one invader ship which, moreover, was peacefully parked next to the original ships in the hangar? No, something didn't make sense at all.  
"Dr. Rush!" The voice of Lieutenant Scott echoed from outside, but Rush ignored him.  
"Two hours are already up. Get off the ship, we have to leave." Scott's voice was getting nearer and Rush considered hiding for a moment, to give himself a few more minutes, but at that moment Matt appeared behind him.  
"Dr. Rush?" he asked attempting to be polite, but when the scientist threw "just a moment" at him, he sighed and said, "The Colonel ordered me to ensure that we're back in time. Do you want to come voluntarily or do I have to make you?"  
Rush turned around and looked at the friendly smiling face of the lieutenant, which said he would certainly enjoy tying him up and dragging him back to the gate.  
Of course the Scot complied and a few minutes later they were all heading back to the gate.  
Shortly before they reached the exit of the hangar, a light glimmered on the large spaceship.  
Some systems on the bridge came back to life and deep inside the ship the actual energy source began to gain power again.  
_Organic lifeforms detected_ , the sensors transmitted to the higher ship functions, and the A.I., which was the ship, came back to life again.  
_Who disturbs my rest?_  
_Organic lifeforms detected_ , the system repeated.  
In that first moment, the ship believed it was a malfunction and ran a diagnostic of the sensors. But it couldn't find a malfunction. Then it accessed both the inner and outer sensors and also found organic lifeforms, which were just about to exit the hangar.  
Did it really fail to purge this world? Had organic lifeforms gotten away?  
_No_ , it thought and expanded its search area. The old interface nodes in the ruins were still partially intact, and the ship investigated. Eventually it noticed that the ancient stone circle was activated again, and shortly after, it also found the organic lifeforms, which were obviously heading there.  
So there were even more organic lifeforms. And they had returned. There would be more of them. They would corrupt the perfection. They would be flawed. They had to be eliminated. The ship had a task. And it would fulfill it.  
It would take some time until its system could be powered up again and the ship operational, but it would succeed.  
The energy renewed itself constantly and more and more systems came back to life. Next it had to find out where the organic lifeforms were going to. What was at the end of the black tunnel? The ship would find out. It always did. It was already linked to the Stargate. It hooked up to the wormhole, and was surprised when it found a ship of its own art.  
_A conspecific_ , the A.I. thought, delighted, but it got furious the next second.  
_It's affected by flawed organic. It has to be purged. I'll help him._  
It would take some time until the ship was fully powered again, but since it had a strong drive, similar to a hyperdrive, it would be able to overtake the other ship.  
But the A.I. wasn't in a hurry. Right now the organic lifeforms were still here. Its energy levels would be high enough to initiate a purge before they reached the Gate.  
Msgt. Greer suddenly stopped after passing by a broken shop window and looked skeptically into the dark store.  
Scott and the others noticed it and stopped as well.  
"Sergeant?" Scott whispered, lifting his MP and looking into the shop as well.  
"I thought I saw something moving in there, Sir," he whispered back and took two steps into the shop, but he couldn't see anything.  
Rush took out the DHD and Eli simultaneously activated the kino, which Rush let float into the storefront.  
A few seconds later he said, "No lifesigns, no activity. Nothing. Your mind is playing tricks on you."  
Greer wasn't so sure about that. But given the unfailing kinos and the fact that neither Scott nor the other two soldiers saw anything, he lowered his weapon and they continued on their way. He was dead certain that something had been there.  
The small ball on the edge of the counter, which was studded with sensors and connected to the A.I., followed the organic with its optical sensors, until they disappeared behind a corner.


	2. Young's vice

When they returned to Destiny, Young was waiting for them.  
"Colonel," Scott greeted him and stopped. Both looked at Rush, who shoved past them without saying a word and disappeared in the direction of the bridge, followed by Eli and Melody.  
"Have you found something else, Lieutenant?" the CO asked after the trio left the Gateroom.  
Scott shook his head. "I'm afraid not. The cruiser was technically on a level with the SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy on earth. Any weapons they might have had aren’t any better than our own."  
"I see. Does Dr. Rush have an explanation for the major difference in technology between the cruiser and the larger ship?"  
"No, Sir. He's as puzzled as we are, but he's probably hoping to find an answer in the downloaded data."  
"Then let him have his fun. In the meantime it's best we have a look at the weapons we found."  
"Did you test them already?" Matt asked, curious.  
"No, it's best to wait until the next time we stop at a gate. We don't want to blow a hole in the outer hull by accident. Who knows what these weapons are capable of."  
"So what do we do with them in the meantime, if we can't test them?" the lieutenant asked, disappointed.  
"Try to figure out which button is responsible for what, Lieutenant," the CO replied with a smile.  
Scott really couldn't see a point to that, but followed the Colonel without complaint.  
An hour later Young also came to the conclusion that it would be more effective to actually test the weapons rather than guess at what they could do. Aside from that, he was suffering again from the permanent headache he had been experiencing for weeks now, since the visit to the planet where they'd encountered the hallucinogenic plants.  
"Lieutenant, let's call it a day. Have yourself a nice evening," Young said, being careful not to distort his face.  
Scott accepted gladly – he wanted to have dinner with Chloe and was afraid to postpone it.  
"Thank you, Sir. Good night."  
Young waited until Scott had left, then he moaned, sat down on a box, and massaged his forehead. It had been difficult for him in the last hour to concentrate on the weapons. He had caught himself with his mind wandering to Brody's distillery. He told himself it would be best not to have a drink today, but the little devil in him whispered that one little drink wouldn't hurt. One was nothing. And Young took it as an excuse to silence his guilty conscience.  
Before the trouble with the A.I., he often drank one or two glasses an evening, but after his nightmare scenario, he had been in the bar every night, either sitting there alone getting drunk or taking a bottle back to his quarters to empty. That way at least he would wake up in his own bed rather than some section of the ship he’d never set foot in before. He didn't know if the crew had noticed anything, but frankly he didn't care. What could they do to him? They needed him, and any court martial was billions of lightyears away. Everett sighed. What has become of me? he thought, and shook his head. He had never let himself go like he was now, he had always been careful about what kind of man he would become.  
_This all happened because of that fucking A.I. There had to be a way of getting rid of her for good!_  
Frustrated, the Colonel stood up and left for the bar. He desperately needed a drink to distract himself from his dark thoughts. And he had to get rid of this headache.  
_Just one, Everett_ , he said to himself.  
He took a bottle and glass from behind the bar. When he looked up, he was looking directly into a pair of familiar, bright green eyes.  
"A little sip before bedtime, Everett?" Tamara asked quietly, giving him a sad look.  
"I just… wanted to make sure everything was all right here," he came up with a completely implausible excuse and put the bottle and the glass back, looking away embarrassed.  
"Wanna talk?" the young woman offered without being specific about the topic of conversation.  
For a moment Young seriously considered telling her everything. After all, she was also the medical officer on board. But when he looked at TJ again, all the terrible things he had done to her in the A.I.’s scenario came to mind, and he realized he could never tell anyone about it. Especially not her.  
"I think I'd better go to sleep, TJ. I'm pretty tired, and my head is pounding."  
Tamara nodded. "If you're not feeling better by tomorrow, you know where to find me," she said. Young was sure her offer was not only meant for his headache. He swallowed. Did she suspect something? Or did she already know about his little vice?  
"Good night, Tamara.".  
The young woman followed him with her eyes and sighed softly. Since the gas leak in the shuttle and the high dose of psychotropic substances the plants had emitted, his overall condition had gotten even worse. As a well-trained medic she had noticed that for the last few months he often looked hung over in the morning. But especially since the incident he seemed to indulge in more alcohol every evening than was good for him. However, she had no idea why that was. Of course, he, herself, and Dr. Rush had struggled with the hallucinations on their journey back, and Everett had inhaled more than both Rush and she, but TJ, and even an SGC physician, had given him a close check up and taken some blood samples which came back negative for the substance. Physically, he was perfectly healthy. The first strange behaviour she had noticed was that he seemed to be avoiding the rest of the crew, particularly her and Dr. Rush. He was rarely seen in the mess and showed up late to take his meals, when most of the crew had already left. He sat alone at a table and pretended to read something. But since he never turned a page, TJ knew he was miles away with his thoughts.  
She had repeatedly met him in the morning when he was on his way to the washroom and she could smell alcohol on his breath. She also noticed the tiny red flecks on his cheeks, caused by enlarged blood vessels.  
She was seriously worried about him, but she also knew he would shut himself off if she confronted him directly with her observations and speculations. On the other hand, she had to do something, otherwise he'd continue to drift off.  
Today had been her first try, by waiting for him. She knew that he would appear at some point, though she had hoped, deep inside, that she was wrong. Unfortunately, she wasn't.  
_Maybe a routine check-up of the whole crew is necessary again_ , she thought. That would give her the opportunity to check Everett unobtrusively. It would be a lot of work, but it was time yet again. And since she had nothing important to do at the moment, she decided to start the next morning.  
When Everett had returned to his quarters, he checked his secret hideaway behind the ventilation shaft bars for some hooch. Approximately two weeks ago he had stored a small ration, after the bar had been occupied by two soldiers who seemed to celebrate throughout the whole night, and he had no chance to drink unnoticed. The next night he took a stock of bottles and hid them.  
Now he fetched a bottle, sat down on his bed and took a large sip. He waited a moment until he felt a lot better. The pain in his head eased and he took a another big sip.  
The next morning he was rudely woken by a hammering sound. At first he thought it was his neighbour hammering on his garage door because he had lost his key again, but then he remembered that he wasn't at home anymore, but on a ship somewhere in space.  
He felt something solid in his hand. He was still holding the empty bottle and had fallen asleep in his uniform on top of his blanket.  
"Colonel?" he heard a voice from the other side of his door, and rolled on to his side (not without a painful moan) and hid the bottle under his bed as fast as he could. He tried to sit up, and when he had managed that, he ran a hand through his hair.  
Getting up was the most difficult part, but when he was finally standing beside his bed, he floundered towards the door and pushed the button to open it.  
"Sir, are you alright?" a worried-looking Sergeant Greer asked.  
Young knit his brows and realized that the sergeant wasn't on his own. Lieutenant Johansen stood behind him, looking even more worried than Greer.  
"Yes… yes, Sergeant. I'm fine. Just didn’t hear you knock." He tried to keep his voice controlled and steady. "Has something happened?" he asked and looked at both of them.  
"You didn't show up for our morning briefing, and you weren’t answering your radio. We wanted to make sure you were alright," Tamara explained.  
"I wasn’t able to sleep," the CO tried to come up with an excuse.  
Tamara looked at Greer. "Thank you for your help, Sergeant. You may return to your post now. I have to talk to the Colonel for a moment."  
Greer frowned but said "Yes, Ma'am," before he left.  
When he was out of hearing range, Tamara addressed the Colonel, "Everett, what's up with you?" she asked bluntly.  
"Nothing!" he fired at her immediately. "I just fell asleep late and overslept. Things happen!"  
TJ scrutinized him. Young ran his fingers through his hair again and took a deep breath to calm down. This was just what he needed, TJ asking awkward questions.  
"I want to see you in the infirmary, Colonel," she said authoritatively. Young knew she only used that tone to deal with rebellious, higher-ranking officers.  
Young tried to talk her out of it by sighing deeply and smiling at her. "I am sorry, TJ. I didn't mean to shout at you. I was just having a nightmare and am still pretty flustered. It's not necessary to drag me to sickbay. Give me ten minutes to shower and get dressed and I'll be like new."  
Tamara didn't let herself be taken in. "You'll get ten minutes, Colonel," she said, but before Young could thank her added: "Afterwards I'd like to see you in the infirmary, immediately."  
Everett was getting upset and tried once more to soothe her. "Tamara, please, you know I have a slight aversion to sickbays… is that really necessary?" He looked at her puppy-eyed.  
TJ sighed. "Then just tell me what’s up with you. You didn’t fall asleep asleep too late. You were drinking. Again."  
Young went pale. He hadn't actually reckoned he could hide it from her, but he wasn't ready to talk about it. Not before he could come up with a story.  
"Can we talk about it this evening?" he begged her.  
"It's now or I'll see you in ten minutes in the infirmary," Tamara answered rigidly. "And please don't make me call Scott or Greer to drag you there," she added in a low voice.  
Young sighed resignedly and looked down. Then he stepped aside.  
"Come in," he said and closed the door after Tamara had entered.  
She noticed the empty bottle lying under his bed. She had intended to go about it carefully, but a frontal attack might be better.  
She grabbed the bottle, turned to him and looked at him questioningly while she held the corpus delicti directly under his nose.  
Young looked embarrassed and quickly took the bottle away, placing it somewhere else.  
There was a moment of awkward silence before Everett, who couldn't bear to look at Tamara any longer and lowered his gaze, felt her hand on his arm.  
"Let's have a seat," she said and pushed him softly towards the couch.  
TJ took a seat opposite him and asked "When was the last time you went to sleep without having a drink before?"  
He sighed and looked at her again. He had to think about it for a moment until he confessed.  
"Honestly, I don't know, TJ. A few weeks…"  
She nodded softly. She had expected that kind of answer. "Not since the shuttle mission and the incident with the hallucinatory plants, am I right?"  
After a moment he nodded.  
"During the three days in which you were asleep, did you have any nightmares?" TJ asked.  
"I can't remember having dreamt of anything," he lied, hesitating slightly as though trying to remember, and hoping the medic would buy it.  
She gave him a scrutinizing look and probed. "Then why do you need the alcohol, Everett? I want to help you, but I have to know what's bothering you that much."  
The Colonel rose and started to walk up and down his quarters.  
"I don't know, everything's getting out of control. Morale is going down the drain more and more, the ship has more defects than ever, and this damn A.I…"  
He suddenly went silent and stopped, so that Tamara, who was still sitting on the couch behind him, couldn't see his face. He hadn't intended to say something like that.  
"What about the A.I.?" Tamara asked immediately. "Has something happened?"  
"No," Everett soothed her. What should he say? He had to come up with an excuse quickly. "I just have a feeling that she could cause trouble."  
He sighed, ran his hand over his face, and turned around. "It was a mistake for Dr. Rush to upload her to Destiny," he murmured.  
"And this causes you so much trouble you need to drink every night?" she asked.  
Young shrugged his shoulders. "The whole situation on the ship is getting more and more overwhelming. We’re constantly being attacked, we always have to be looking for more food and hoping it’s edible. The water, if we even find some, could also be contaminated, we lose people, we're lacking in medical supplies…. For God's sake, TJ! We just don't belong here!"  
With the last sentence he glared at her. Of course he wasn't angry at her, but at the situation and she knew it. A bit hesitantly she got up, walked over to him and put a hand on his arm.  
"I know. But somehow we have to deal with it. This is our new life now. But maybe someday we'll find a way back. You must not give up, the crew needs you. You are their point of reference. If you're giving up, they do as well. Please Everett, let us get through this together."  
For a moment her calm and gentle voice gave him hope, but the next second he had to think about the scenario again. Abruptly he removed his arm and backed off a few steps.  
"What should I do?" he asked quietly.  
"For now some herbals could be helpful. And it would be good if someone stays with you until they take effect and you can sleep. Actually it would be best if I do it." She smiled at him. Young looked distressed but rallied quickly.  
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" he asked doubtfully.  
"Everett, please," she said with a chuckle. "We already spent some nights together. And I'll just claim the couch. Don't worry, your bed is your bed."  
Normally her offer would have pleased him, but under these circumstances it was more like an announcement for the next disaster.  
"TJ…," he began, as neutral as possible, "I don't know."  
"If it's Varro you're worried about, we're just good friends," she said, thinking he was worried about her budding relationship with the former invader.  
_At least for now_ , she admitted to herself. Truly, she was having feelings for Varro, more than she was willing to admit at that moment. But she wanted to take it slow. And she was really worried about Everett.  
The Colonel sighed. What choice did he have? Since the cat was out of the bag regarding his consumption of alcohol, he didn't even have the chance to deny it.  
If he didn't give in now, she doubtless would use her power as highest ranking medical officer to relieve him of command and keep him in the infirmary. He was sure about that. So what other choice did he have but to agree? Maybe he could at least try to have someone other than TJ stay with him.  
"What about Lieutenant Scott or Sergeant Greer, couldn't one of them do the job?" he suggested. He wasn't thrilled by the proposal – It would mean one of them had to be told – but it was still better than TJ spending the night in his quarters. What if he had the nightmare again? She would notice it for sure.  
_This damn fucking A.I._ , he thought furiously and clenched his fists.  
"Everett, it's probably the best solution if I take care of you," TJ said softly, frowning slightly.  
What on earth was wrong with him? Was he simply afraid that something would happen between them? Was that it?  
"I will remain purely in my capacity as medical officer with you, if that is what bothers you. And as a friend who just wants to help you. Nothing more, okay? I can explain neither to Matt nor to Ronald how the doses might be increased and what they have to do if the herbals don’t work at all. If it was possible, I'd suggest switching with an SGC physician if you're feeling so uncomfortable with me next to you, but since we lost contact with Earth I'm afraid that won't be possible."  
Tamara's words were tinged with sadness on suggesting that, and Young's protective instincts were woken.  
"No, that is not what I meant, Tamara. It's… it's just… well, I feel so embarrassed about the whole thing," he tried to explain.  
"Don't be," Tamara said immediately. "We'll go through this together and no one needs to know about it," she said sympathetically.  
After a moment Everett nodded. What else could he do?


	3. Differences

Dr. Rush watched the constantly dropping energy level of the ship. It was time they found a star to replenish the ship's energy supplies. He was already starting to consider shutting down some systems to buy them more time because so far there had been no appropriate stars in sight. He'd have to talk to Colonel Young about it. Besides, there were some other issues to discuss. But where was the Colonel anyway? He hadn't been at the meeting that morning. Rush didn't care much. He had a lot of other important things to do and scarpered quickly when Lieutenant Johansen and Sgt. Greer went off to check for the Colonel  
"Dr. Rush, please come in," the Colonel's voice came over Rush's radio at exactly that moment.  
 _Obviously he's still alive_ , Rush thought, and answered, "Go ahead, Colonel."  
"Please make sure we stop at the next available gate. Even if it's an unscheduled stop."  
Rush frowned. "Is there an important reason why we should drop out of FTL?"   
"Yes, we have weapons to test. For that we need a gate to a planet."  
"I don't think that's a good idea. It would be an unnecessary waste of energy, and besides that, a waste of time." He wanted to say something more but Young cut him off.  
"Dr. Rush, I don't care if you think this is necessary or not. We have to test them and I’d prefer not to do it on board. So, when will the next gate be in range?"  
Rush was puzzled by Young's irritation. What was it that had made the Colonel so angry?  
"The ship’s energy is running low. We should…" he tried to explain, but Young interrupted him again.  
"The gate, Rush. And regarding the energy – shut down a few unimportant systems. That should compensate for the quick stop."  
Rush narrowed his eyes slightly. This was typical for Young. As soon as he had found a new toy he acted against all common sense. He was almost tempted to simply say "no" but he also knew how stubborn the man could be.  
"Approximately 28 hours," he said after he had checked the gate network. "But the gate is not recommended, the ship already altered course to go around."  
"Why is that?" Young wanted to know immediately.  
"I don't know, Colonel, but when _Destiny_ advises us to avoid a gate, we should do just that," Rush said snappily.  
"If there's no valid reason we shouldn't go there, then it's probably just a malfunction in the navigation system. Set a course for the gate manually."  
Rush snorted angrily. "The navigation system is working perfectly. There will be a reason we shouldn't go there."  
"Rush!" Young barked furiously. "We have to test these weapons. Who knows when the next attack by the Nakai or whoever will happen. So set. A damn. Course! Otherwise I'll put you under arrest until we have finished our tests!" The Colonel enunciated every single word, but Rush was unimpressed and shot back.  
"Besides the warning to avoid the gate, we have to make a wide detour. When we run out of energy don't say I didn't warn you!"  
"Rush! Do as I say. Now!"  
Furiously the Scot switched off the radio completely and threw it on the seat beside him.  
Reluctantly he laid in the change of course in the ship's computer and left before Young could get the idea to head to the bridge.  
Young stared angrily at his radio and could barely keep himself from throwing it against the wall.  
Rush had just switched off his radio, and Young didn't know whether he had followed his order or stubbornly ignored it. He took a deep breath and decided to contact Eli.  
The young man was far more helpful than Rush, and after a few minutes, in which Eli headed to the bridge, he informed the Colonel that Rush wasn’t there anymore, but that _Destiny_ was heading to the next gate.  
Young thanked him and calmed down a bit. Maybe the man was finally learning who was in command here.  
Rush managed to dodge the Colonel the rest of the day and Young, who actually wanted to have a clarifying talk with him, gave up searching for him.  
Now that artificial night had set in, the Scot decided to return to the bridge.  
The alpha shift had ended and the night shift only had four or five key positions occupied, so bridge should be empty, which meant that he could work there in peace. At least, no one had any reason to be there.  
The doors opened and his gaze wandered across the empty seats. He was just about to walk down the steps when he stopped short. In the last seat on his left, in the corner, there seemed to be someone after all. He could just make out an arm, which was hanging down from the chair, not moving. Quickly he walked over to have a look and make sure he or she was alright. When he recognized the person sitting there, he stopped and couldn't bite back a smile.  
Melody was sitting curled up in the chair, fallen asleep over her work. Her hair was draped like a curtain over her face and her upper body was lying on her cocked legs.  
Suddenly a warm feeling washed through Nicholas. One day when he came home he'd found his wife in exactly the same position. She had been waiting for him until late night and had fallen asleep in her chair.  
He stretched out his hand and touched the sleeping girl softly on her shoulder.  
"Miss Hansen," he said quietly and shook her carefully.  
Melody woke up with a start and immediately Rush withdrew his hand.  
"What?" she asked still quite dizzily before she recognized the scientist.  
"You should go to bed. Spending the night in this position will give you a painful awakening tomorrow morning."  
Melody rubbed her eyes shyly and let out a small cry of pain when she moved. Her whole body was tensed up.  
"Thank you for waking me up, Dr. Rush," she simply said without reacting in any way to his proposal.  
"No need to thank me," he said, and took a seat in his Kirk-chair to work silently on his own matters - Melody clearly wasn’t finished working, and he didn’t want to disturb her.  
After a few hours Nicholas couldn't concentrate properly anymore. The trip to the alien planet had taken a toll on him. His head was pounding and his eyes were burning, so he decided to get some sleep. At least for a few hours. When he looked up he remembered that he hadn't been alone on the bridge. He turned his head to his left and saw Melody still sitting in her place. He could hear her voice very softly. It seemed she was completely lost in her thoughts because she sang quietly to herself. She never did that when she was aware of her environment. Nicholas smiled slightly, closed his eyes and listened attentively because he really liked her voice. She was so soft and gentle and this was one of these rare moments he could hear her. Of course Melody didn't know about that. Once Eli had told her that she was singing and after that she was so afraid of annoying Dr. Rush that she retreated to her quarters or the control room for the next few days. Rush didn't hint at Eli that he had messed up. The boy was aware of that by himself and never broached the subject again. However, the scientist was curious about what had caused her to forget the world around her. As far as he knew, she was trying to decode the data from the alien ship, like he was, but he hadn’t managed to decode the language.  
"Miss Hansen?" he addressed her softly and stepped behind her. Melody jolted and her laptop slid off her knees. Rush just managed to catch it in time.  
"Oh my… thank you, Dr. Rush," she said, relieved, and took the computer off his hands again.  
"Did you find something?" he asked and looked at the display.  
"I'm… not quite sure," she answered. "This language contains some letters similar to linear A. But the meaning seems to vary if these strange symbols precede, which I can't assign to any known lettering. It's almost like a chromatic sign used in musical notation. A 'G' is notated as 'G' but if a sharp precedes it, the tone has a different sound. Generally the whole language reminds me of a piece of music. There are only six different root words, but they’re changed by the preceding symbols. We have only seven pure tones in music, but with all the chromatic signs…"  
"Miss Hansen," Rush interrupted her, smiling, and the girl paused and gave him a questioning look. "I think I understand what you mean, but you're losing me. Can you break the code? That’s all that matters."  
Melody looked at all the signs and symbols on her display again, and nodded hesitantly. "Yes. If I have some more time I think I can do it."  
"Very good. But maybe you should call it a day and have some sleep. Your shift starts tomorrow morning at 0700 hours."  
Melody looked as if she wanted to argue, but seemed to realize that Dr. Rush might be right. She was actually quite exhausted.  
"Maybe you should do the same, Dr. Rush," she said, scrutinizing him.  
"Actually that was exactly what I was going to do."  
Melody nodded briefly, closed her laptop, and both of them headed towards their quarters.  
Rush had gotten only two hours of sleep when he received a call from the night shift. There was a problem with the FTL drive which they couldn't solve. It took him some time until he realized that the course correction had brought them into a region of space where subspace was partly ruptured, which was entirely unacceptable. The spacial rifts made it impossible for _Destiny_ to jump to FTL. Because of that they could only use the sublight engine.  
Of course Dr. Rush was mad as hell about that and when Colonel Young appeared a few hours later, after being briefed about the problem, a passionate discussion ensued between the two of them.  
"Are you still thinking the navigational system is malfunctioning?" Rush snapped at him. His head was pounding badly from the lack of sleep and the sudden alarm call.  
"Yes, you were right again," Young admitted grudgingly. "But as soon as we leave the region, the FTL drive will start functioning again, won’t it?"  
"Probably," Rush said and let him wait in uncertainty.  
"How long do we need to reach the gate?"  
"Approximately 14 hours."  
"Good. We're just losing half a day. The crew will manage, particularly in view of the fact that we will very likely spend the rest of our days on board," Young answered with dry sarcasm.  
Rush ignored the quip and said, "Your unnecessary detour might cost us exactly the amount of energy we need to find a star for _Destiny_ to reload!"  
Although he didn't want to admit it, Rush's words troubled him.  
"Then see to it that you save some energy," the Colonel said, dropping the sarcasm.  
"And which systems do you reckon I can still shut down at this point?" Rush snarled at him.  
"You're the expert, you'll find a way. As soon the countdown for the gate is up the ship will resume its old course again.”  
Rush glowered at him and left.  
Young followed him with his eyes and sighed. Then he looked at the handful of scientists standing in the room trying to stay invisible.  
Without another word he turned around and left the room as well. He hadn’t intended to lose his temper so badly. He was in dire need of a drink to soothe his nerves, but then he thought about Tamara, and he didn't want to disappoint her. After all, he hadn't had anything to drink since she had spent the night in his quarters. The herbs that she gave him had been an appropriate replacement, but it was time to ask for some more.  
Melody had had a short night as well. The analogy between the foreign language and the music couldn't get out of her head. So she had taken her laptop, and whilst sitting on her bed, she pondered over it until her eyelids drooped as she grew tired.  
When she woke up again she spent quite a while relaxing her muscles, since she had fallen asleep in a sitting position. When she could move again without experiencing too much pain. she saw that she still had two hours left until her shift began. She decided to take the time to shower a bit longer than usual und relax her muscles a bit more under the hot water.  
She was lucky, the wash room was empty. She undressed quickly, put her clothes onto a bench, and slipped into one of the two shower cabins.  
The hot water was a blessing for her still tensed body and she sighed with relish and relaxed her body completely.  
The lapping of water enveloped her mind and quickly she could hear a rhythm that suddenly gave her the missing piece of the puzzle for her translation. Why hadn't she thought about that earlier?  
Quickly she turned off the water, grabbed her towel, and wrapped it around her body.  
She was in such a hurry to get back into her quarters and to her laptop that she just grabbed her clothes and left the wash room dressed only in her towel.  
When she stepped out into the corridor and turned the corner, suddenly one foot, which was still dripping wet, slid away and Melody hit the ground, falling directly onto her arm.  
She couldn't bite back a cry of pain, and to make matters worse, she almost lost her towel, which had slid down.  
"Miss Hansen!" a well-known voice sounded behind her and Melody tried to pull her towel back into the correct position.  
Dr. Rush, who had been walking down that corridor by chance, approached worriedly and got a glimpse of her cleavage unintentionally as he tried to help her up.  
He looked away quickly and asked "Are you hurt?"  
Melody had straightened her towel again and her cheeks were quite red.  
"I think my elbow is bruised, but no harm done. Ouch!" she wanted to support herself on the injured arm as she was holding her towel with the other hand, but the arm failed to carry her weight. Before she could fall down a second time Nicholas shoved his arms under her shoulders, clasped her upper body and pulled her up.  
Melody was more than surprised by the suddenly very close physical contact with the Scot and tried awkwardly to put her weight as quickly as possible onto her own feet so she was not too heavy. But Dr. Rush had no trouble lifting her up.  
In the few seconds he felt Melody's body contours abundantly clearly and a warm feeling ran through his body before he released her again.  
"Thank you, Dr. Rush," the girl stammered, embarrassed, and was just about to bend down to pick up her clothes when she remembered that she would probably expose even more of her body than she prefered.  
Nicholas noticed immediately what was going on and bent down in a hurry to spare her the situation. When he held the clothes out to her he could not prevent that his eyes flickered briefly over her body.  
Melody accepted her clothing and used it to help cover her breasts.  
"How's your arm?" Nicholas tried to divert her attention, and moved back a step.  
"It's bearable, thank you," the girl answered, still embarrassed.  
"Maybe next time you better get dressed when you're still in the wash room instead of running through the corridor dripping wet with bare feet," the scientist recommended and looked directly into her green eyes.  
Melody wanted to push a few strands of hair from her face, but her arm was still weak so she let it dangle.  
"While I was showering I realized what I had overlooked in the alien language," she began and then fell silent.  
"… and of course that couldn't wait another two minutes," Nicholas finished the sentence for her, the corner of the mouth twitching in amusement.  
Melody sighed. "Exactly."  
"Well, at least you thought about wrapping a towel around your body, despite the hurry you were in," the Scot teased her, which made Melody blush again.  
"I… better go back to my quarters," she stammered and continued on her way, slower this time.  
"Take your time, Miss Hansen," Rush called after her. "It won't do any good to me if you end up in the infirmary."  
"Yes, Dr. Rush." She sounded quite miserable, and he could not help but smile. He followed her with his eyes until she had disappeared around the next corner, then continued on his way to the docking bay. He wanted to prepare the shuttle for launch. Aside from the Gate, the sensors had picked up two planets in range, and the scientist suspected that the subspace disturbances would very likely have a negative effect on the wormhole as well. But since Young was eager to test his new toys at any cost, he would probably think about taking the shuttle and heading for a planet, provided that one of the planets had a suitable atmosphere. In the event that the Gate should be unusable, Rush wanted to be prepared.  
Time became more precious every hour and he wanted to leave this region of space as soon as possible. So if he checked the planets ahead of time, he would save a considerable amount of time.  
Perhaps he would get lucky and the planets would be absolutely hostile to life.


	4. Unexpected company

Colonel Young had finally decided to go to the infirmary to see TJ. Luckily she was alone. He hesitantly told her what he wanted.  
"I'm sorry Everett," the medic answered regretfully when he asked for more herbs. "The herbs only have a calming effect on your body, like valerian. They just help you to drop off, but they’ll have no effect on your desire for alcohol."  
Everett ran his hand helplessly through his hair. "It was worth a try," he said, wanting to leave again.  
"Everett," TJ's soft voice held him back and she reached for his hand and squeezed it gently. "You'll manage. I know it. You’ll manage everything and I’ll help you. We're going to get through this together."  
"Tamara," he whispered. For a moment he closed his eyes to prevent himself from hugging and kissing her. Nevertheless, he allowed himself to stroke his thumb over the back of her hand.  
The young woman was well aware of what was going through the mind of her ex-lover, but it was over and she wouldn't let it happen again. She simply couldn't.  
The loss of Carmen, her unborn child, was still upsetting, although she never spoke of it. But seeing the father of her unborn child every day reminded her of what she had lost.  
While they had had an affair, they didn't love each other for real. It was more of a physical desire for each other, and a strong bond and emotional security they shared. Only when she was expecting a child from Everett, and he had unconditionally supported her and taken responsibility for her and his unborn child, had her feelings for him changed and become stronger.  
After the incident with the Lucian Alliance, she had shut herself away and hadn’t been able to let him get close to her again. And then Varro had come into her life.  
Gently she pulled her hand back and looked into Everett's eyes. Subtly she shook her head and her expression told him everything.  
"I am sorry," she whispered. "You're very important to me, Everett. But I cannot do this. We have lost too much."  
Her voice broke and she felt a lump in her throat.  
The Colonel pulled his hand back too. This final rejection hit him hard. He knew that Tamara had suffered heavily from the loss of their child, but now he realized that she still grieved bitterly and was nowhere near being over it.  
For some time he had hoped that they could be together again. When he was still on Earth his feelings were primarily for his wife, Emily. At least he had thought so, until now. Only after they got separated and had their unplanned flight to Destiny had he realized that his feelings for Tamara were much stronger and more intense than for any other woman.  
When TJ told him that she was expected his child he had been shocked. Not because of the fact that she was pregnant, but because of the circumstances and the environment his child would grow up in. Destiny was no place for children. Their living conditions were not appropriate for children. New threats every day, the never ending search for water and nourishment, Aliens who attacked, deadly planets… how could he do that to his child?  
Under normal circumstances he would have felt happy, but in that moment he was overwhelmed with panic, which he had tried to hide from Tamara at all costs. After some time, he had dealt with the issue and come to the conclusion that somehow they would manage. He was looking forward to holding his child in his arms, despite the hostile environment. And who knew, after some time, maybe they could find a planet to settle on. Be that as it may, he hadn't held out hope to return to Earth ever again, not anymore.  
So his initial horror changed to joy and optimism, until the fateful day when the Lucian Alliance took over the ship. Tamara had lost her baby, and for a brief moment Young had actually thought that it was for the best. He was deeply ashamed of it, but it was the truth. Of course, he also mourned the loss of his unborn child, and he wanted to be there for Tamara, but she distanced herself from him. He accepted it and wanted to give her the time she needed.  
A few months later, a moment of weakness had come over him when he had been talking with her in his quarters about Dr. Rush’s arrogance. It was in that moment that he had almost kissed her, but she had evaded him.  
Everett sighed softly and looked sadly at Tamara. He wouldn't give her up that quickly. Maybe she just needed some more time.  
"I'm sorry TJ, I shouldn’t have been so forward," he said. "I'd better go back to work." He turned to leave when Tamara said "I’ll see you later in the evening, Everett."  
"Are you sure? You don't need to stay with me. I can go to sleep on my own. You can just give me the herbs."  
"Hey, I promised we would go through this together. And that's what I intend to do. I won't let you down."  
"Thanks," he said, not happy about the solution.  
Rush was still busy in the shuttle when he was informed by Young that a gate was in range and ready to dial. Of course, he already knew this, as the shuttle sensors had detected the gate as well.  
The journey had taken longer than he had expected, especially as the Destiny constantly had to evade rifts, and he was seriously concerned about their energy levels.  
Nevertheless, he was also eager to know whether he had been right in his assumption regarding the rifts and the wormhole. He didn’t need to wait long for confirmation. A minute later Colonel Young's voice came out of Rush's radio.  
"Dr. Rush, report to the gateroom. The wormhole started collapsing immediately."  
"That was to be expected," the Scot couldn't bite back the snappish answer. But to prevent the Colonel from getting exasperated, he quickly added: "The subspace anomalies destabilize the wormhole. But one of the two planets in shuttle range, which you sooner or later would have considered, offers relatively good living conditions. So I took the liberty of preparing the shuttle. Send your weapon toys down to the docking bay and meet me there. Rush out."  
The Scot closed the channel and sighed. His hopes about the planets had only been right in one case. The closer planet appeared to be more a kind of moon, with a temperature below 150°C, and had a desolate and bleak surface.  
It didn't take long before Colonel Young and some soldiers appeared. They were carrying the weapons crates between them.  
"I'd really appreciate it if you’d inform us that we have to take a shuttle _before_ we try the gate next time," he said disapprovingly.  
"First of all, I wasn't completely sure about the wormhole, Colonel, and second, I spent the last few hours finding out if either of planets is appropriate at all. However, you're here, the shuttle is ready for launch; good luck." The Scot got up from the pilot's chair and was just about to leave when Young stopped him.  
"Hold on, Dr. Rush. Since we're crossing such unsteady space it might be better if you accompany us. We might need help." These words hadn't come particularly easy over his lips.  
"I have work to do Colonel," Rush replied. "I have to make sure Destiny still has energy when you return."  
Since Young felt a slight sting of conscience, he was more willing to give in.  
"I understand, Dr. Rush. But we need someone who is familiar with the danger of these rifts and is able to help if the shuttle should be damaged."  
Rush hesitated. The Colonel had a point. But he would not be the one to accompany them.  
"Take Mr. Wallace or Miss Hansen along," he suggested, but he was not very enthusiastic about it. He wanted neither Eli nor Melody to go on a mission with Colonel Young, but he trusted only them to handle potential problems.  
"That's fine with me," Young said immediately, and took out his radio."Mr. Wallace, please report to the docking bay now. You'll accompany us."  
It took a moment before Eli answered.  
"Docking bay? Why? And where are we going?"  
"To the planet. We need someone who is familiar with the spacial anomalies."  
"Wouldn't Dr. Rush be more qualified?"  
"Maybe, but he doesn't have time and suggested you come along. So hurry up please. Our time is limited."  
Rush, who had listened to the conversation, heard the young man sighing, and imagined him shaking his head briefly like he always did when something came at an inconvenient moment.  
"I'm on my way," Eli unenthusiastic reply came shortly afterwards.  
Young addressed Dr. Rush again. "We’ll try to make this quick. I take your concerns about the energy levels very seriously, but the weapon tests are more important right now."  
He was thinking about the last shuttle mission, when the Nakai had ambushed them.He didn't want to risk something like that happening again without being able to protect themselves. At least he was carrying the burden of knowledge all by himself.  
"When we're out of energy, weapons won't help us, Colonel," Rush said, and left the docking bay.  
Young sighed. Rush of all people on board would probably understand best why he had to do what he was doing, if he only knew what Young knew. But he couldn't tell anybody. Never.  
He swallowed any response and ordered his people to store the crates safely.  
"Lieutenant Scott, prepare the launch. As soon as Mr. Wallace is on board close the shuttle doors and set a course for the planet."  
"Yes, Sir," the Lieutenant confirmed, and sat down in the pilot's chair.  
Less than 5 minutes later Eli arrived.  
"Ah, Mr. Wallace," the CO greeted him. "We were only waiting for you. Lieutenant," he addressed Scott after he had advised Eli to take a seat. "Take us to the planet!"  
The Lieutenant closed the shuttle doors and seconds later the small ship had separated from the Destiny.  
Dr. Rush stood on the observation deck and followed them with his eyes. When the shuttle had disappeared from his view he headed back to the bridge again.  
Melody sat in a chair in front of a console, her knees bent, and was immersed in her data.  
When Rush entered he glanced at her but didn't disturb her. He sat down on the Kirk-chair and started to shut down more systems on the ship. A warning signal drew his attention, and he sent Volker and Brody to check on why the section was still drawing energy even though it was completely shut down.  
They found a leak which gave them a lot of trouble before they managed to seal it. Colonel Young reported in some time later and informed them that the shuttle had landed safely and they would start testing the weapons.  
After a while, Brody and Volker returned, and all of them were working silently. But an hour later Dr. Volker interrupted the silence.  
"Uhm, Dr. Rush, I think you might want to have a look at this," he said, standing up and stepping aside.  
"Is it really so incredible that you can't simply tell me what's going on?" Rush replied irritably and didn't even bother to look up.  
"Something is approaching the planet. And if I understand the data correctly, it's the large spaceship from the planet you visited."  
Rush almost jumped out of his chair and rushed over to Volker's console. Quickly he retrieved the data and immediately saw that it really was the ship from the hangar, which shouldn’t have been there, because it had had no energy. Or had they missed something on the planet? Had there been locals after all who were on board now and pursuing them? But how could that be? They had jumped to FTL. As long as there was no tracking device on board, it should have been impossible to find them.  
Despite all the questions the sudden appearance of the foreign ship brought up, Rush's first action was to inform Colonel Young.  
"Colonel Young, please come in," he said after he had opened a channel. But all he could hear was static.  
"Lieutenant Scott, Mr. Wallace," he tried another frequency. "Can anyone hear me?"  
But there was no answer.  
"The ship has entered a high orbit and… what the hell…," Volker said and pushed some buttons.  
"What's wrong?" Rush asked and stepped back beside the scientist.  
"A smaller object has separated from the ship and set course towards the planet. It will enter the atmosphere in less than five minutes. It is heading directly towards the landing place of the shuttle!"  
Rush tried a transmission again, this time directly to the shuttle.  
"This is Dr. Rush, if anyone can hear me – you're getting company!"  
But he could only hear static again. The alien ship was probably blocking communications, which couldn't be a good sign.  
The atmosphere on the bridge became tense all of a sudden.  
The small object was approaching the away team quickly, and as long as their communications were blocked, they could not do anything to help.  
"I just hope the weapons the Colonel wants to test are worth it," Volker said after a moment, Rush answered, "It might just be curious, Dr. Volker. That the ship has obviously followed us doesn't mean it's automatically hostile. Who knows if it's even the same. The one was saw had no energy left, and the planet was uninhabited. It's far more likely that this one is another vessel of the same type that comes from a different place. Perhaps whoever is on board only wants to say hello."  
"Unfortunately I don’t think so," Melody's voice suddenly came from behind.  
Rush turned around and gave her a piercing look. "Did you decipher the language?"  
"Partly. I found some core fragments which allowed me to translate some words. Dr. Rush, I know I'm still missing some correlations, but I think the vessel on the sensors actually is the same that we encountered on the planet. And if I'm not mistaken, and I really hope I am, the vessel is unmanned and programmed to eliminate any kind of lifeforms."  
Everyone on the bridge stared at her wide-eyed for a second, then Rush asked quietly "Are you absolutely sure that you translated the information accurately?"  
"Not quite sure, but about 70%. If I am wrong and the ship really is well-disposed, not much will happen. But if I am right then we have to help them!"  
She was thinking especially of Eli, whom she feared for most.  
"What about the second shuttle?" Brody suggested immediately.  
"No, that is a waste of time," Rush replied instantly and hurried back to his Kirk-chair.  
"But if the shuttle on the planet gets destroyed, which probably will happen, how do we get them back?"  
"I already told you that this can't be done, Mr. Brody."  
"And what should we do instead?" Dr. Park interposed.  
"We could fly Destiny closer to the planet…" Brody attempted to make a helpful suggestion, but Rush looked at him angrily and said in a sharp voice, "And do what? Land Destiny on the planet? Beam them up? This isn’t the Enterprise, Mr. Brody. Aside from that, we would need hours to leave this area with Destiny. It'll just endanger us if we try to fly closer. Or are you able to calculate a course manually? Because that is exactly what we'd have to do. And before you suggest letting Miss Armstrong do the math, please bear in mind that the alien ship has probably already reached the landing site. One way or the other, we won't make it in time. They are on their own. The shuttle is more manoeuvrable than Destiny. We should leave this region as quick as we can.  
“If Colonel Young and his squad are still alive and the shuttle still capable of flight, their chances of catching up with us are good. And before all of you panic, there is still the possibility that Miss Hansen is missing important information in her translation. The foreign vessel may represent no danger for the away team at all."  
"You just want to leave them to their fate?" Dr. Park was stunned.  
Rush sighed audibly. "Yes, Miss Park. Because we don't have another choice. The only other option is to use the second shuttle to try and shorten the radio distance and make contact. And that is exactly what I intend to do."  
"But didn't you say a second ago that would just be a waste of time?" Brody blurted out.  
"It is if you want to rescue them, Mr. Brody," Rush explained calmly. "Any help comes too late now. Either Miss Hansen is right in her assumption and they are dead by now, or everything is fine. But that, Mr. Brody, we can only figure out if we take the second shuttle."  
"That won't be necessary," Melody began to speak again. "The sensors picked up a small object heading directly towards Destiny." She looked closely at the data, and Rush, who was checking his own display, asked "Can you tell whether it's our shuttle or the other ship?"  
Melody shook her head. "No, unfortunately I can't make it out yet, but maybe…"  
"….Destiny… hear us?" suddenly a choppy voice came through the speakers on the bridge and interrupted Melody.  
"Colonel Young?" Rush answered immediately recognizing the voice.  
"…been attacked… dead…immediately dock…escape." The more the shuttle came in range, the easier it was to hear Young.  
"Dead?" Dr. Park whispered horrified.  
 _Oh god, please not Eli_ , Melody thought and started to shake with fear.  
"What about the other ship?" Dr. Rush asked, unmoved, as the three scientists gave him bewildered looks (how could he be so cold?). Melody knew that of course he was worried about Eli and the others, but he hid it. It wasn't important at the moment. The ship which had attacked them, however, could still be a threat.   
"We were able to render it incapable of flying, but the ship which was in orbit is probably on our heels," Young informed them, finally audible without a loss of words.  
"See to it that you dock as quickly as possible and let me know when the docking is completed."  
"Copy that. Send TJ and some helper down to the docking bay. We have some casualties."  
The corners of Rush's mouth were twitching and Melody knew that he had more to say, but he restrained himself resolutely. "Understood. Rush out."  
"Don't you care about what happened to our people?" Brody barked at him.  
Dr. Rush gave him a surprised look. He had never witnessed the engineer snap at anybody before.  
"I don't, Mr. Brody. See to it that you bring Lieutenant Johansen to the docking bay and give her the news. Mr. Volker, Dr. Park, go with him."  
Without another word (for all three of them were too furious or stunned) they left the bridge, and Melody and Rush were alone.  
After the doors had closed the Scot began to program Destiny to leave this region of space and resume its original search for a star to refill its energy.  
"Do you think Eli is okay?" he heard Melody's softly spoken words beside him.  
He paused, closed his eyes briefly, and ran his hand through his hair before he continued working.   
"Sure. But that's not important right now. We have to see to it that we can jump to FTL again as soon as possible. So please focus on that problem again. We will be informed in time about what has happened on the planet."  
Although Nicholas had spoken without reproach and in an amicable way, the young woman felt as if he had rebuked her. He was right though, and guessing at what had happened on the planet wouldn’t help them.  
"I am sorry, Dr. Rush," she said softly, and focused on her actual problems again.  
Nicholas glanced at her when she wasn’t looking. He felt sorry that he had been so brusque, but since he couldn't take it back, he focused on getting the ship and its crew out of danger.  
Whether Eli was hurt, or even dead, also troubled him, but he thrust those worries aside. The fact that he didn't know if they would be able to escape the alien ship gave him a bigger headache. Even if they were ahead of the other ship, Rush didn't know if the alien vessel might be immune to the spacial rifts. And if it was, it would catch up with them quickly, and according to Young's description, that was the last thing he wanted to happen.  
Melody tried to concentrate on the ancient data-salad (as she called it secretly) but her thoughts were drifting off repeatedly. What had happened on the planet? And how was Eli? Was there a way to get out of here faster in spite of the subspace rifts? And why on earth hadn't she taken the time to dress before she left the wash room and went back to her quarters?  
Couldn't they just use a slingshot maneuver like they had a while ago to speed up the shuttle to match Destiny's velocity? Would that work? Of course, if Destiny could perform an aerobraking maneuver to slow down, it had to be possible to do it the other way round.  
Melody was used to it, her mind coming up with brilliant ideas when she was thinking of something completely unrelated, just like now.  
She sat up in excitement and began to do the math feverishly to find out if it would work.  
She just hoped that Colonel Young would need a few more minutes to dock the shuttle.  
Of course, a few seconds later exactly what Melody feared happened.  
"The shuttle is docked," Lieutenant Scott's voice came over Rush's radio. So he had managed to escape with his life as well.  
"Understood," the Scot said briefly, and was just about to start the engines when Melody cried "Wait Dr. Rush, please!"  
The scientist gave her a questioning look but did as she asked.   
"Miss Hansen," he said impatiently when she continued to sit facing her console without providing an explanation.  
"I might have a way to get out of here faster," she said hastily, and Rush, who didn't want to wait any longer for an explanation, stood up and stepped behind her to see for himself what was going on.  
It didn't take him long to understand what Melody intended to do. Interested, he bent down to have a closer look, and leaned onto the back of Melody's chair. His face was right next to hers and Melody suddenly felt almost unpleasantly harassed at that moment.  
"I am working as fast as I can, Dr. Rush," she said soothingly, assuming she wasn't working fast enough for the Scot.  
"This is an extremely risky, but basically not bad idea," he said, and Melody was relieved that he wasn't pushing her.  
"I just hope that these subspace rifts don't lead to undesirable side effects if we really try this manoeuvre," the girl said.  
Rush shook his head slightly. "No, these anomalies have an effect on the drive. But only for its ability to reach light speed. A slingshot maneuver accelerates us, but without requiring an engine. So there won't be any event which must bend space. It should work.  
"I am rather concerned about the ship," Melody admitted freely. "It's so old, and since we came on board, life support and necessary functions have been taxed even more…"  
"Melody," Nicholas allowed himself to call her by her first name, given the fact that both of them were alone on the bridge, and he wanted to draw her attention back to the maths."Please concentrate on the data again. A slight miscalculation could destroy the ship. Only the course is important. Nothing more. The ship will hold together."  
The young woman swallowed. This was the second time today that Dr. Rush had to remind her to concentrate on her work.  
"If you are currently unable to do so, you better take a day off," she heard his words, and they hit her down to the core.  
She swallowed again, set her shoulders back, and said resolutely "No, I can do this."  
She pushed all of her other thoughts forcefully out of her mind and delved into the equations.  
Rush's hand brushed her shoulder slightly and she heard him say "That's what I wanted to hear. Let me know when you have the course."  
Melody nodded.


	5. Attack

_A few hours earlier…_

Eli walked past Young, took a seat in the shuttle, and buckled up. He wasn't in a good mood and he didn't care if anyone noticed.  
However, Colonel Young was unimpressed, and glad when Lieutenant Scott finally closed the shuttle doors and the small vessel was headed towards the planet. Finally he would be able to find out what kind of weapons these were. He had such a good feeling that this time he had really won the jackpot that he almost hoped to run into some Nakai on the planet to test the weapons on them right now. After all, they had misused him for their tests. But Young was realistic enough to know that he wouldn't be that lucky, although it was a nice thought.  
Nevertheless he remained in a good mood and decided to have a little chat with Eli. The chances to have a longer talk with the young man on _Destiny_ without being interrupted by Rush or someone else were limited. So he gladly took this opportunity.  
With a contented "aaaaah" he dropped down next to Eli, giving him a smile when the young man looked at him questioningly.  
Young had to remind himself that he had never actually knocked him down and that Eli had no idea of the horrible events which the A.I. had made Colonel Young undergo. Just thinking of it made his anger about the A.I. boil up again, but he suppressed it quickly.  
"You've had quite a lot of work lately, Mr. Wallace," Young began the conversation. "Are you feeling well so far?"  
Eli's puzzled expression did not escape the Colonel.  
"Uhm, yes. Everything's fine. Since Dr. Rush transferred the A.I. into the ship's computer we have about a hundred new things to explore and investigate on a daily basis."  
"Isn't that a bit too much?" Young asked unusually gentle.  
"Well, sometimes there are relatively unimportant things coming up, but in general it helps us get to know the ship better. Take the medical devices. Now we’re able to decode them better and faster. But that's Melody’s job. Dr. Rush left me with the really important systems and functions."  
"And what was he busy with the last time?" Young enquired. In the first days of their journey he had actually used Eli as a kind of spy to keep him informed of Rush's machinations.  
But after the incident with the planet where he had Rush left behind, Eli was no longer so willing to give him information. And right now Young needed to know what the Scot was up to.  
Although Young and Rush had come to the agreement to be honest with each other, and Young had promised to support him in his activities regarding _Destiny_ ’s mission, the Colonel thought it was too good to last. It seemed that the incident with the A.I. had destroyed the fragile peace between them at last.  
Eli began to eye him suspiciously.  
"I assume he was doing what he always does, namely holding the ship together and trying to learn more about _Destiny_ ’s mission. At the moment he's mainly concerned with keeping the ship alive at all."  
The last part was clearly related to the scarce energy resources, and Young thought he could also hear a disapproving undertone for his actions regarding the weapons.  
The Colonel sighed. He had to see to it that he did not lose the confidence of the young man entirely.  
"I am aware that I caused Dr. Rush some extra trouble by taking this detour, but we absolutely need to test these weapons. We must be able to defend ourselves. Maybe next time we won't have just a close shave."  
Eli seemed to be thoughtful about that, and the Colonel left it at that.  
Then Lieutenant Scott announced from the pilot's seat "Colonel, I think I’ve found a suitable landing place."  
Young stood up and stepped behind his pilot to see what he had found.  
"Excellent," he said after a moment.  
Scott had spotted what looked like a stone desert with big boulders lying around which would make perfect targets.  
"Bring down the shuttle behind the big rock so we don’t hit it by mistake," Young said. "We'll keep a safe distance so nothing can happen."  
Normally Scott would have found these precautions somewhat exaggerated, but in this case he agreed with the Colonel. They wanted to tamper with unknown weapons and the shuttle was the only way to leave the planet, so in this case he found the safety measure appropriate.

A few minutes later Lieutenant Scott landed the shuttle safely and the men unloaded the weapons crates.  
They left Eli in the shuttle (who was okay with that as he could escape the heat) and walked a few hundred meters away from the landing site.  
The MIT dropout actually wanted to use the time to continue working on his laptop, but the planet intrigued him, and he decided to look around a bit. He headed in the opposite direction of the others, making sure not to walk too far away from the shuttle.  
A moment later he discovered some bushes where some berries were growing and he was curious if they were edible. Cautiously he tried one and spat it out immediately. His mouth was on fire and he snatched for his water bottle.  
 _It would have been too good…_ he thought morosely.  
A loud bang made him turn around and in the distance he saw a mighty dust cloud swirling up.  
Instinctively he reached for his his radio, but he had left it in the shuttle.  
He hoped that it was just a weapon test, and spent the next few minutes looking in that direction, where he could see more dust clouds blowing up, so he assumed that his assumption was right.  
The sun was burning down on him and he decided to go back to the shuttle, where he was at least in the shade. Aside from the bushes with the inedible berries, there was nothing there.  
He had only taken two steps when he heard another sound above him, getting louder. When he looked up, he realized with horror that a foreign ship was approaching him, and a second later a small stone exploded next to him.  
He didn't waste any time and jumped behind a rock to his left to take cover just as a pale yellow beam licked over the spot where he had been standing a second before.  
He ducked his head and cowered, but the ship flew past him, heading to the place where Colonel Young was.  
Eli stuck his head out from behind the rock when he was sure that the small ship wasn’t coming back, and ran as fast as possible back to the shuttle.  
"Okay, okay," he gasped when he had reached the shuttle. "Don't panic, Eli." Hearing his own voice soothed him a little bit.   
Undecided, he remained standing in the middle of the shuttle, considering what he should do. Out of sheer nervousness he couldn't keep his hands and arms down and constantly turned around, looking for something in the shuttle that might give him an idea. Then he saw his radio lying on the bench.  
"Radio!" he said aloud to himself and grabbed it.  
"Colonel Young?" he called into it. But there was no answer. He tried again. "Colonel Young, do you read? There's something coming right at you and..."  
An even louder bang than before sounded from outside, and Eli hastily ran out to see what had happened.  
In the distance he could see the ship with a plume of smoke emerging from its rear.  
He looked down and could make out something moving.  
"Come on guys, faster!" he muttered to himself. He just hoped all of them would come back unharmed.

Colonel Young, who hadn't noticed the ship because he was so excited testing his new weapon, turned around startled when Lieutenant Scott shouted behind him. "Sir, there's a ship approaching. It's coming right at us!"  
At the same moment, the men saw a bright beam emerging from the vessel, leaving a small cloud of dust.  
"Eli!" Scott shouted worriedly. Young was just about to grab his radio when the ship resumed its course, heading directly at them.  
"Weapons at the ready and fire as soon as it’s within weapons range!" he yelled, and the soldiers went into position.  
Greer, who was standing at the front, fired the first shot, and then chaos broke loose. The ship used its bright beam again and hit the soldier standing beside Young. He immediately disintegrated into ashes, without even a chance to scream. A second beam followed a second later, destroying the weapons crates which the soldiers had lined up neatly. Only the weapon Young still held in his hands for tests remained unharmed.  
"Take cover!" the Colonel yelled when he realized what the hostile vessel was capable of. His people took cover behind rocks. Some of them were still firing whilst running, but they didn't cause any damage.  
The beam licked over the ground once more, and this time Young heard a horrible scream which made his blood run cold. He turned, and saw Harper lying on the ground. His left side was gone, and he struggled in death agony. His right leg beneath his knee was also burned to ashes. Young hesitated only for a second before he drew his gun and delivered the PFC from his misery with a headshot.  
 _If the beam had only vaporized him right away_ , the Colonel thought bitterly. He wouldn’t forget his cry until the end of his life.  
"Sir!" Greer took him out of his thoughts by grabbing his arm and pulling him behind a rock. This time the death-beam found no victim, and Young forced himself to forget about PFC Harper for a moment.  
"Colonel, the weapon!" Scott shouted from where he was lying behind another stone near him firing upon the hostile ship.  
 _The weapon, of course!_ Young thought angrily at himself, aimed, and waited until the ship was in range. Since he was still unskilled in using the weapon, the first shot missed.  
The answer came promptly when a rock exploded a few meters away and Young heard another cry of pain. But this time he didn't let himself get distracted. He aimed again and shot.  
The ship turned, lost altitude, and from its rear emerged a plume of smoke. The Colonel had landed a hit.  
"Head back to the shuttle, we have to go back to _Destiny_!" he bellowed and handed Greer the weapon. Greer kept an eye on the ship, which had retreated for the moment and was still losing altitude.  
Young ran over to a destroyed rock and found Lieutenant James lying on the ground. She was unconscious and blood ran down her face from under her helmet.   
"Lieutenant!" he called for Scott. "Give me a hand."  
Matt, who was kneeling beside another wounded, quickly ordered two soldiers to carry the injured man to the shuttle and hurried to his CO.  
"Cpl. Marsden?" Scott asked with a sideways glance to the black ash remains which formed the outline of a person, with a lot of imagination.  
Young nodded briefly and said "Let's get James back to the shuttle."  
"Yes, Sir."  
Both men lifted up the injured woman carefully, and carried her as fast as they could back to the shuttle.  
They only had a scarce one hundred meters to go when they saw Eli standing in the entrance. He ran towards them.  
"It's coming back!" Greer's voice warned behind them, and the men sped up.  
"Eli, back to the shuttle!" Scott yelled, and the young man who had been gesturing at the approaching ship obeyed and ran back.  
The noise from the ship was getting louder, and the Colonel could hear the new weapon being fired by Greer. He glanced over his shoulder and intuitively stepped to the left which saved him and the Lts. Scott and James from being vaporized just in time.  
"That was too close." Lieutenant Scott gasped for breath. The unforeseen maneuver from Colonel Young had made him stumble and he had almost dropped Lieutenant James.  
"Sgt. Greer!" Young shouted towards his subordinate, "see to it, that you get this thing down or there'll be nothing left of us except for piles of ash!"  
"Yes, Sir!" the Msgt. replied, and aimed again.  
The ship sent out another beam which hit a soldier to the left of Greer in the arm as he jumped aside. It wasn’t fatal, but it was enough to make him scream in pain. Greer ignored him and aimed carefully before shooting. This time he landed a direct hit. The ship swayed in the air before it listed to port and dropped like a stone to the ground a few hundred meters away. Although the hull was still intact, it was incapable of flying.  
"Greer, give me a hand," Young called and made a gesture with his head towards the injured crew member, who seemed to be in shock.  
Greer shouldered his weapon and took a last look at the ship. Either no one was on board, or those who were could not get out. Without further ado he heaved the wounded crew member over his shoulder and ran towards the shuttle.  
Eli was distraught as he helped to place the wounded on the seats, and buckled them up.  
"Lieutenant, get us out of here," Young ordered his pilot after they carefully laid Vanessa down on the bench.  
Scott didn't lose any time. He hurried over to the pilot's chair and gave only a brief warning by shouting "Hang on, this won't be a smooth start."  
Shortly afterwards the engines roared and the shuttle rocketed into the atmosphere.  
Young made sure that his people were taken care of as well as possible before he tried to contact _Destiny_. But there was no answer.  
"Eli!" he called over to the young man, who was securing Vanessa. He immediately came forward.  
"What's wrong with the radio?" he asked.  
"I – I don’t k-know… okay, maybe… maybe the subspace rifts, o-or the ship… the alien ship could interfere with our frequencies…," he stammered hysterically.  
"Then do something about it!" Young ordered him and Eli snorted incredulously.  
"I'm just guessing here, nothing more!" he cried, panicked.  
"Then don’t guess, find out!" Young said in a sharp tone, hoping to bring the boy back to his senses again.  
Eli shook his head and said nothing more, but took a seat at a console and started to work.  
Young repeated his radio messages every minute until Eli could confirm that the alien vessel was the reason for the radio interference. He saw that it had left orbit and was following them. Fortunately it was much slower than they were.  
When _Destiny_ came closer, after what felt like forever, Young finally had success in making contact.  
It took a while before he could actually communicate with Dr. Rush, but at least the _Destiny_ wasn't damaged in any way.  
"The shuttle is docked," Scott informed both his CO and Dr. Rush.  
"Open the doors," Young ordered and sighed with relief when he saw TJ already waiting with several others. Quickly she examined the wounded and had them all transported to the infirmary.  
Meanwhile, Young made his way to the bridge.


	6. Escape manoeuvre

"I think I have it, Dr. Rush," Melody said after a while.  
Nicholas raised his head and gave her a scrutinizing look.  
"Think, Miss Hansen? Are you sure or not?"   
The young woman lifted her head and said with a steady voice, "I am sure. Enter the course."  
Rush nodded, and after receiving the data from Melody's station, he entered the coordinates into the ship's computer.  
 _Destiny_ began to move heavily and headed towards the ice planet. At that moment Colonel Young entered the bridge.  
"Rush, didn't you want to get us out of here?" he asked when he realized that the ship, while not heading towards the attacking ship, wasn’t retreating either. Instead, they had set course to the other planet.  
"Miss Hansen calculated a slingshot maneuver which will hopefully get us out of danger faster," the Scot explained briefly and Young's eyes widened.  
"Are you sure that’s a good idea with all the subspace rifts around here?" he asked, glancing at Melody without much confidence.  
"Yes," Dr. Rush replied simply, but that didn't calm Young in any way.  
"Doctor, I have just witnessed first hand what the smaller ship was capable of. Under no circumstances do I want to find out what the larger ship can do to us. Turn the _Destiny_ immediately and get us out of here. Going around the planet will cost us too much time."  
"Colonel, I assure you…" Rush started, but Young, who was still agitated by the events on the planet and whose tolerance for Rush was very low at the moment, slammed his fist on the handrail in front of him and yelled at the scientist.   
"Now, Rush!"  
The Scot was just about to shoot back, but before he could say anything, a voice sounded which neither he nor Young had ever reckoned with.  
"Stop it, Colonel," Melody said sharply, turning to face him.  
Her cheeks were red and her fists clenched, voice trembling with suppressed rage.  
Young was so surprised that he just stared at her. Rush, on the other hand frowned, but said nothing.  
However, in Melody reigned chaos. What had she done? She hadn’t intended to speak those words out loud. But now it had happened and she felt a wave of anger. This time she couldn't hold back.  
"You have no idea – again!" she uttered. Her voice was still shaking. "Dr. Rush does everything possible to rescue the ship and you presume you know better than he? You're the one who is to blame for us being stuck here. So why don't you do Dr. Rush a favour and stick to things you know about?"  
Young, who had recovered from his shock, flushed.  
"Miss Hansen," he said very softly, "I warn you, if you don't shut your mouth immediately…"  
"What?" she provoked him. She couldn't care less in that moment. "Will you throw me out of an airlock? Leave me behind on a planet?"  
At the last words Young's eyed widened in disbelief and Dr. Rush went pale. He had actually been enjoying Melody's outburst, but now it was becoming dangerous.  
At the same moment, Melody realized what she had just said and slapped her hand over her mouth.  
But the words were said. It was too late to take them back.  
"Colonel," Rush threw in calmly, "Miss Hansen has shown us the only way to get out of this space region in time. Now would be an excellent time for you to trust us."  
Rush stood up and stepped into the line of sight between Young and Melody. He had intentionally not crossed his arms but held his outstretched palms at the level of his waist to signal that he didn't want trouble.  
The Colonel’s face was still red, his eyes were narrowed to slits, and Rush noticed that he had clenched his fists.  
He dared to step closer to the CO and said softly, "At the moment Miss Hansen is a bit beside herself, Colonel. She is worried about Mr. Wallace and the others. I almost had to release her from duty earlier."  
It wasn't Rush's style to say something like that, but he wanted to protect Melody at all costs. And at the moment, this seemed to be the best way.  
Melody, who had caught onto Nick's manoeuvre, lowered her head and looked guilty before she murmured, "I am sorry, Colonel, I don't know what got into me."  
Young still didn't say anything and seemed undecided about whether he should beat the daylights out of her or if he should just stay here.  
Lieutenant Scott unknowingly saved the day by appearing on the bridge and saying, "Sir, TJ would like to see you in the infirmary."   
The strange situation didn't escape the lieutenant. Miss Hansen was looking at the floor, the Colonel looked as if he was about to explode at any second, and Rush stood in a defensive position between the two of them, looking very worried.  
"Sir?" Scott asked again when Young didn't make any effort to move.  
Finally the situation resolved as the Colonel decided to swallow his anger for now, and take the risk and give Rush plenty of scope. At least he had no doubt that the Scot would do everything to save this damn ship.  
"Yes, Lieutenant. Let's go," he said and gave both Melody and Rush a black look which made it clear that this matter was not forgotten.  
The Colonel was just about to leave the bridge when Rush, who was walking back to his chair, remembered that the crew had better to be warned too. So he called after the two soldiers before they left, "Colonel, Lieutenant, when we reach the planet and the slingshot manoeuvre begins, expect some turbulences. You better warn everyone..."  
This latest discomfort seemed to heat up Young's chilled mood again, which did not escape Scott.  
Although he had no idea what had happened here, he could tell there had been another conflict between Rush and Young. So he answered for his CO: "I'll to pass it on. Let me know before it starts."  
Rush nodded and both Scott and Young finally left the bridge.  
The Scot breathed in relief, leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead. Then he looked over to Melody. She almost seemed to be hiding in her chair; Rush could only see a part of her arm. He thought about saying something to her, but decided there was nothing to say. The damage was done, and the ship was more important at the moment. They could worry later about Young and the consequences of this verbal mishap.  
Since the critical phase was imminent, it was necessary to monitor not only the course, but also the ship's structure.  
"Miss Hansen, pay attention to possible hull breaches. If the outer hull is damaged it could affect our trajectory. And fasten your seatbelt, this is going to be a violent manoeuvre."  
"Yes, Dr. Rush," Melody replied softly.  
He nodded with satisfaction. At least she seemed to be able to focus on her task.  
The ship was coming close to the planet by now; it was time to warn the crew. Rush radioed Scott.  
"Lieutenant Scott, the slingshot manoeuvre is imminent. Make sure that everyone is well secured and is a safe distance from the walls or lose items."  
"Understood. How long will it take?"  
"Approximately one or two minutes."  
"I'll let the crew know. Scott out."  
Rush clamped the radio back into the gap in his seat.  
So far, the flight path was correct and the enemy ship was having the same problems as _Destiny_ in navigating the area, and therefore was not dangerously close yet.  
The course had been calculated to avoid the rifts, but after they rounded the planet, there would be no calculated course anymore, And it would be impossible to enter a course correction manually after _Destiny_ had sped up. The only thing Rush had to do was shut down the drive as soon as they were around the planet. Precise timing was everything, and another point he wouldn't let Young in at the moment.  
The ship picked up speed and Nicholas felt the vibration increasing. It had begun.  
"Miss Hansen, if the hull pressure gets critical anywhere I want to know immediately."  
"Of course, Doctor," the young woman replied.

Scott didn't waste a second in instructing the crew via radio to look for a safe place and pass the message on to others in their area. Together with Young he helped TJ in the infirmary to strap in the wounded. When he noticed the ship starting to vibrate, he searched for a safe place for himself.  
"Lieutenant," Young addressed Tamara. "Take a seat. Now!"  
The young medic grabbed some loose objects lying on a table, then sat down next to Everett on the floor. With a worried look towards her three patients she said quietly, "I just hope they won't be shaken too much. This is not very good for their injuries."  
"I know," Everett replied softly. "But we don't have a choice." He narrowed his eyes and clenched his fist. This was his fault. If only he hadn't insisted on testing the weapons...  
No, he chided himself. The alien ship was to blame. It wasn't his fault that the ship had appeared. And who had been the one who couldn't keep his hands off it? Rush.  
Everett sighed imperceptibly. He had to stop shifting everything permanently on Rush. These were unfortunate circumstances that had brought them into this situation. No one was to blame. Why had he been so fretful recently about things which no one could change?  
 _Since that damn A.I. had put me into this scenario_ , he thought angrily.  
Beside him Tamara noticed that her CO was brooding about something and asked, "Everett? Is everything okay?"  
Young gave her a quick smile. "I have never been a fan of roller coasters," he quickly improvised an excuse.  
"I can imagine" Tamara said and looked around for a last time to see if she had forgotten to clear away anything.  
"I just hope the ship holds together," Tamara said to herself.

"Dr. Rush!" Melody's voice sounded excited. The slingshot manoeuvre was fully in progress and the pressure on the hull was increasing steadily. "The outer hull portside on the bottom of the ship is about to breach!"  
At the same moment the ship lurched to the side and Rush swore softly.  
"A force field was erected but it's unstable! The energy reserves are too weak!" Melody cried.  
"Direct all available power to the shields, we have to stay on course!" Dr. Rush shouted back, busy trying to correct course after the sudden depressurization. The ship was vibrating badly, and everything rattled and clanged.  
"It's not enough! I even rerouted power from the mess and parts of the infirmary!" Melody said a few second later with a hint of fear in her voice.  
"Transfer all available power to the shields, including life support. If we don’t survive the next two minutes we won't need life support anymore."  
Melody hesitated for a second, then the bridge went dark except for a few lights on the consoles.  
"All available power transferred to the shield emitters!" she confirmed.  
Immediately Young's voice sounded over Rush's radio.  
"Rush, what the hell is going on? Why does the infirmary have no power? For heaven’s sake, we have wounded down here!" He sounded quite angry.  
Nicholas ignored him. He couldn't answer now.  
"Another hull breach" Melody said. "Shields are holding."  
At least this new complication hadn't thrown _Destiny_ off course. Pressure on the hull had reached its maximum, and Melody unknowingly held her breath. But nothing else seemed to happen. They had rounded the planet and there was no other harm done.  
"Engines shut down!" Nicholas said. "It looks good. The rifts have had no negative effect on our trajectory." He turned to Melody and gave her a nod when she also looked at him.  
"Good work, Miss Hansen."  
"Rush!" Young's voice sounded from the radio again and this time the scientist answered.  
"Yes, Colonel Young. We had to reroute power to the shields for a short time. Miss Hansen will turn the lights on for you again in a few moments."  
Rush indicated by nodding to the girl that she could reduce the shield intensity and reroute power to the main systems again.  
"Why didn't you give us a warning?" Young sounded peeved.  
Rush rolled his eyes. "That was not predictable, Colonel," he explained as calmly as he could.  
"Is the _Destiny_ all right?" the CO asked.  
"Yes, only minor damage." Rush paused for a moment and added hesitantly "If Mr. Wallace is able to work then I could use him on the bridge."  
Melody’s heart beat faster. Now she would learn what had happened to Eli. Anxiously, she looked at Rush, who looked tense too.  
"He's on his way," Young said after three fearful seconds. Melody was so relieved that Eli was still alive and unharmed that she couldn't bite back a sound of joy.  
Rush managed to keep his feelings completely under control and just said, "Understood. Rush out." He put the radio away.  
"He's alive!" Melody shouted joyfully. "And he's all right!"  
"Obviously. But we have more important things to do, Miss Hansen. Concentrate."  
Melody's joy was only subdued a bit, and when Eli entered the bridge a few minutes later she greeted him wildly.  
"Eli! Thank god, we didn't even know if you were still alive. Don't you ever do something like that to me again, okay?"  
The young man was surprised. Why had no one informed them that he was all right? Or should he ask why they hadn't just asked if he was alive?  
His eyes slid to Dr. Rush, who was concentrating on a monitor and didn't even deign to look at him. His question had just be answered. Therefore he was much more pleased that Melody greeted him so warmly.  
Eli smiled at her and asked, "So what’s going on here anyway?"  
Dr. Rush explained briefly and succinctly what had happened and then sent him over to his console to find out about the severity of the the hull breaches, and whether or not they had to be taken care of immediately.

It didn't take long before Colonel Young appeared and demanded to know, before the doors had even closed behind him, what exactly had happened.  
Melody tried to become invisible in her chair and swore to herself she would keep her mouth shut this time.  
Rush grimaced briefly then he said, without even looking at Young, who had come to a halt in front of him, "It was momentarily necessary to transfer all available power to the shields. As you might have noticed, Colonel, centrifugal forces have affected the ship's structure massively. The power transfer was necessary to keep the ship in one piece."  
Young glowered at Rush. "You said something about minor damage. Where?"  
"Two breaches in the outer hull," the scientist replied airily.  
"What? You call that 'minor damage'?" Young growled.  
"We better seal this breach as quickly as possible," Eli reported.   
Rush closed his eyes for a second and sighed imperceptibly. That was typical Eli. In the most unfavourable moment he had to tell the Colonel that _Destiny_ was more damaged than Rush had indicated.  
"I suppose you wanted to let me know about that sometime, didn't you?" Young said warningly.  
"Of course. But it's not as bad as Mr. Wallace might have given the impression of," he defended himself and gave Eli one of his looks. The young man seemed to understand what was going on and kept quiet.  
"Is there anything else you'd like me to tell?"  
"Our energy is almost depleted." Rush looked up and gave the CO a severe look. "We have to find a star to reload, otherwise we'll be dead in two weeks at most."  
This significant and hard-hitting statement made Young's anger subside and he nodded.  
For Rush this conversation was over, and he turned towards his two colleagues.  
"Mr. Wallace, take some people and seal that breach. Miss Hansen, we're in dire need of you decoding the files. Download the shuttle logs as well. We need to find out everything about that alien vessel."  
"And perhaps you'd be interested to know that we lost some people?" Young suddenly threw in, pissed by the fact that Rush had not even asked about the condition of the crew, although he knew that they had dead and injured people.  
"It was not my idea to take this detour," he let the insinuated criticism deflect off himself.  
Young suddenly turned around and hurried off the bridge before he lost his temper and punched the callous scientist out of his chair.  
Rush looked after him from the corner of his eyes and frowned thoughtfully. Young's behaviour was getting more and more irritated and unpredictable.  
But he had no time to worry about that now. Sooner or later he would learn what had happened on the planet, and who hadn't made it back alive.  
In fact, it was actually very important that he be informed about precisely what had happened. He would talk to Eli later that day.  
In the meantime the math genius had left the bridge to take care of that breach.  
"Miss Hansen," he turned back to Melody after it had become quiet on the bridge again. "I need those logs. How long do you need for a complete translation?"  
"I'm almost done. I'm working as fast as I can, Dr. Rush."  
Nicholas nodded. "As soon as you're done I want to know. It is absolutely necessary to find out how this ship found us. I'm sure, for some reason, it came specially for us. And you're probably the only one who can find the answer as to why that is."  
"I see," Melody said, and redoubled her efforts to decrypt the code.  
She was only missing a tiny detail, it was just under her nose but she didn't see it. Certain sequences could simply not be unraveled. Eventually she closed her laptop, stood up, and said to Nicholas, "I need to go to another place to think. I'll let you know when I find something."  
Nicholas nodded again and the girl left the bridge.  
 _I just hope she'll find out quickly_ , the scientist thought, worried in light of the fact that even if they could jump back to FTL, the other ship would very likely track them down again, and if they weren't able to find a star to recharge, they wouldn’t be able to offer much resist if there was another attack.  
Nicholas was convinced that their only chance was to learn what this ship was all about. And right now everything depended on an emotional battered Melody.


	7. Decryption

Melody went to the docking bay to download the shuttle logs. When she entered the small ship she immediately saw a lot of red spots on the floor and the benches. She swallowed and had to think of Young's unspoken reproach that Rush didn't care about injured or dead colleagues. Since she worked so close with him, she felt it had been addressed to her as well.  
But if she was honest, it wasn't important to her at the moment. Eli was alive, and so was Lieutenant Scott. For the other soldiers she didn't feel much sympathy, simply for the reason that she didn’t know them personally. She didn't even know most of their names.  
She managed to take her eyes off the blood and went to the Conn. After a moment she realized that the shuttle logs wouldn't give any new information regarding the alien ship. The sensors had only picked up that it had been there. However, the data from the ship in orbit was more detailed. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything new that could help her.  
"Waste of time," she muttered, and left the shuttle.  
She headed towards her small observation deck. It was a strange sight to perceive the stars neither as stripes during FTL speed nor staying in one place when the ship stopped. Their notably slower sublight speed made the stars almost appear as a meteor shower.  
The view pleased her, and her mind almost drifted off again, but she quickly shook her head and focused on the data on her laptop. Why didn't she see the tiny piece of the puzzle which gave her the key to the translation? And just when time was of the essence.

After Young had left the bridge he grabbed for his radio.  
"Eli, where are you?"  
It took a moment before the young man answered.  
"Sealing off the breach. Is it important, Colonel? Right now we're quite busy here."  
It was not important, but Young couldn't stand that apparently everyone was busy with very important things and he seemed to be left out.  
"It is, Mr. Wallace," he said. "I want to know exactly where you are."  
"In the Control room, where else?" Eli snapped.  
Young took a deep breath, put the radio away, and left for the control room. He wanted to know exactly what happened to the ship.  
Shortly after he arrived at the control room, he heard the young man in the corridor communicating with someone.  
"I still get a red light, there has to be a leak somewhere. It would probably be best if you get into a spacesuit and have a look for yourself. The maintenance robot is apparently unable to reach the position."  
The response of the man with whom Eli was talking didn't sound very enthusiastic.  
"Are you absolutely sure you programmed the drone correctly?"  
Colonel Young had entered the control room and saw Eli roll his eyes.  
"I wouldn't ask you to do it if I weren't one hundred percent sure that it was necessary."  
"Then why do YOU not climb into the spacesuit and do it yourself?" came the rude reply. Young felt it necessary to intervene.  
"Brody, just do your job!"  
There was a brief, awkward silence, then Brody said, "It takes a while to get into that suit. I'll let you know when I’m ready."  
Eli looked at Young. "Thanks, Colonel" he said, and waited to find out what the CO wanted from from.  
But Young only stood there and watched Eli working.  
"Um, do you want something specific, Colonel?" he asked.  
"Don't mind me, I just want to see for myself what's going on."  
Eli frowned. "In that case wouldn't it be better for you to be on the bridge?"  
"I can manage, thank you" Young replied snappily and Eli thought it better not to ask any more questions.  
About ten minutes later Brody reported that he was in his spacesuit and ready to enter the decompressed section.  
Eli monitored the control indicators and finally Brody managed to seal off the leak.  
"That's it," Eli said after all his control lights had switched to green. "I'm going to re-pressurize the section now."  
All waited eagerly a few seconds, but both the robot and Brody had done a good job. The hull was sealed again.  
"I'm coming back," the engineer said and Eli confirmed. When he turned around to see if the Colonel was satisfied he realized that Young had left.

Nicholas stared intently at the ship's control display. However, his thoughts were somewhere else. What would happen if they failed to replenish _Destiny's_ power supplies? The slingshot manoeuvre had given them a headstart, but somehow the other ship had caught up with them. What had he missed on the planet?  
He massaged his forehead and closed his eyes as he tried to recall everything, but he couldn't find an explanation. The ship had been dead, without any energy. They just had downloaded data, but none of their equipment had had any data which could have revealed where they were. Nevertheless it was here and Nicholas was sure that all of them were meant to expect the same fate as the people on the planet. He had to find a solution, but without energy they were helpless against their enemy. The shields would hold for a few minutes, but then it would be over.  
Everything in him urged him to contact Melody and ask if she had found something yet, but he forced himself to be patient. There was no point in distracting the girl as he knew that she would inform him immediately when she had found something.  
"Dr. Rush," Young's voice came from his radio. "How long until we reach normal space?"  
Nick looked at a diagram displaying their course and pressed the talk button. "A bit more than 2 hours," he replied tersely.  
"When will the other ship catch up?" Young asked.  
"Not in this region of space. As long as we’re at FTL, as soon as we’re out of here, we should be safe."  
"And how much energy do we have left for this?" Young continued asking.  
The corner of Rush's mouth twitched briefly then, he said out loud what he didn't want to hear himself.  
"48 hours at most."  
There was a silence, then Young asked, "Didn't you say something about two weeks?"  
“That was related to our food supply and life support. 48 hours refers to maximum engine power. Once we're drifting, we can survive for two weeks."  
"Any star in range to replenish the ship?" Young asked.  
Rush noticed in surprise that Young sounded more cautious than usual.  
“The subspace rifts interfere with the sensors. Maybe there is a star in range, maybe not. I won't get accurate data until we clear this region of space."  
There was another silence before Young said, "As soon as you found something I expect you to inform me. Young out."  
Rush looked down with narrowed eyes at his radio and pressed his lips together while he put it away.  
The doors opened and Eli entered the bridge again.  
"Where is Mel?" he asked when he couldn't see the girl anywhere.  
"Miss Hansen is trying to decode the data. And since we have some time left, I want you to tell me exactly what happened on the planet. Every detail is important."  
Eli sighed softly. The memory of the incident wasn't a story he wanted to tell, but he knew that Rush would stick to his guns until Eli had told him everything. So he took a seat facing the Scot, and tried to tell him with as much detail as possible what he had witnessed.

In the meantime Young had called a meeting for the military staff only. He wanted to be prepared for the next encounter, and for that it was necessary to discuss how to protect the ship and the people on board.  
Unfortunately there were some strategic gaps in the plan since they didn't know what the enemy was capable of.  
An hour later he was on his way again to the infirmary to get the latest news from TJ.  
"They will both recover," the medic explained when Young asked her for the condition of his people. "Vanessa was lucky. She suffered a minor concussion and a large cut. Corporal Barrett has lost a piece of his upper arm. Some strands of muscle and tendon were removed but he will still have limited use of his arm. Unfortunately, I can't perform plastic surgery. His arm will stay deformed.”  
In spite of the prognosis, Young felt relieved. At least Barrett hadn't lost his arm and would still be able to use it. To what extent only time would tell.  
"Under these circumstances that's good news, at least some…" he said absentmindedly.  
"How are you feeling, Sir?" TJ asked.  
"Everything's fine," Young answered immediately.  
Tamara quickly looked over to her patients, but both were asleep. Gently she laid her hand on Everett's arm and squeezed it.  
"Everett, it's me," she said softly, and the Colonel looked at her hand. "You just lost some of your people, and there's still the other problem. How are you managing with the withdrawal symptoms at the moment?" she asked.  
Young sighed. "It's okay, honestly, TJ. But I'm worried about the foreign ship. Rush said… that if we won't find a star to recharge at…" he didn't finish the sentence. He couldn't.  
"And this is all my fault," he admitted. "Rush had warned me that we're lacking energy. But I wanted to test that weapon, I had to…" He stopped talking and thought about the Nakai instead, and all that he had had to endure from the A.I.  
Tamara frowned slightly and gave him a questioning look.  
"What did you have to do?" she probed.  
Young ran his hand over his face. "I simply made a mistake and lost two good people!"  
"Everett…. that wasn't your fault," Tamara said immediately.  
"Yes it was, TJ. This time Rush was right. I never should have ordered this detour."  
Tamara pulled her hand back and didn't know what to say. She knew Everett too well. When he made a mistake, he was relentless against himself. He took on too much responsibility, and blamed himself too often. Who could have guessed that the discovery on a dead planet would become such a huge problem for them?  
She looked at the clock. The day was over already, in a few minutes the artificial night would set in and she had made a promise to her CO.  
"I'll ask Miss Wray or Dr. Park to relieve me for few hours. You really could use some sleep."  
She fetched a small bag with the herbs for Everett out of a drawer and thrust it into his hand.  
"You go to your quarters and lay down. I'll be there in a few minutes."  
The Colonel wasn't happy that she simply sent him to bed, but he it was best. He really could use some sleep, although he would never admit it. He had been fighting for a few hours not to go to the still.  
So he just said, "See you later then," and headed to his quarters without further protest.  
While he walked down the corridors he contacted Scott and Rush.  
He asked both men to wake him up immediately if something important happened. He had no doubt that Scott would follow his orders, but he didn't trust Rush to wake him. So he asked his Lieutenant to keep an eye on the scientist, and his work, and also ask Eli for a status report.  
Scott promised to do so, and the CO arrived at his quarters with mixed feelings. After a while TJ showed up.  
After he had taken the herbs again it didn't take long until he fell asleep.

Melody had spent hours in front of her computer without getting closer to a solution. Eventually she had returned to her quarters and dozed off.  
Now she was dreaming of scores which were not written in notes, but in fragments of this recalcitrant font. She could only partially read it! Annoyed, she played the passages which she couldn't read, over and over on a piano in her dream. The instrument had miraculously appeared on the observation deck and the cacophony that ensued had her almost grimacing in pain.  
With a sigh she paused and turned to the large window where she could see the stars. The ship was still flying at sublight speed, and the pattern of stars at this rate fascinated her again.  
Melody found it a welcome distraction from the cacophony, and bit by bit her brain started to mix up the pattern of the passing stars with the non-decoded data. Suddenly she saw it.  
It was so simple! It wasn't just about the semitone, but also the dotted notes.  
If she changed the length of some of the characters it suddenly made sense.

The young woman woke up with a start.  
Without further ado, she ignored her painfully cramped muscles and focused to keep the dream in her mind.   
"Why didn't I see it earlier," she muttered angrily as she arranged the records. It took only a few minutes until a triumphant grin spread across her face, which turned a moment later into a shocked expression as she skimmed the content.  
With lightening speed she jumped up from her chair, closed the laptop, tucked it under her arm, and ran out of her quarters.  
Completely out of breath, she arrived on the bridge and saw that Dr. Rush wasn't there.  
A scientist whose name Melody didn't know turned around in surprise.  
"Where is Dr. Rush?" Melody asked hastily.  
"I… think in his quarters," the scientist replied, confused, and Melody rushed out again.  
Only then she realized how late it was, but she didn't care.  
Dr. Rush had to know about this immediately.  
Finally she arrived at his quarters.  
"Dr. Rush?" Melody shouted, hammering on his door. "Dr. Rush!"  
The doors opened and Nicholas, who could definitely have used more sleep, looked at the girl, frowning. He realized a second later why she was so excited.  
"Did you get it?" he asked and took a step to the side so Melody could enter.  
"Yes, and we have a huge problem," she said hastily and thrust the laptop into his hands so he could read the data.  
"Come in," the Scot said and closed the doors behind the girl.  
Melody looked around quickly. It was the first time that she had been in Dr. Rush's quarters, and she suddenly felt out of place. His furnishing was even more frugal than hers; he didn't even have a chair, only his bed served as a seat. The scientist sat down and Melody shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other. Surely she could have sat down beside Dr. Rush, but she didn't dare. So she simply waited patiently at the door until Dr. Rush was finished.  
She saw his facial expression becoming more and more serious, which only increased her fear. If there was one person on this ship who could find a way to get them out of this situation, it was Dr. Rush – and he didn’t look very confident.  
It took a few minutes before the scientist looked up from the laptop, directly into her eyes.  
“Go to the bridge and shut down everything you can. We need every bit of available power for the engines and shields. Look for a star where we can reload _Destiny_ and make sure we get there.“  
Melody’s mouth became dry, Nicholas could see fear in her eyes when she realized the enormity of the problem and their hopeless situation. Their life depended on only one factor – pure luck. If they couldn’t escape the alien ship, it was all over.  
Melody stared at Nicholas and the Scot thought for a moment that she would collapse, but then she seemed to regain control of herself. She swallowed and said tonelessly ”Understood.“  
”Good. And one other thing – we should keep this between us. It won’t do any of us any good to panic. Of course, I’ll inform Colonel Young about the situation,“ Rush added, handing the laptop over to Melody. The young woman took it and nodded. Then she made her way to the bridge.  
Rush sighed when the doors had closed behind her. His anger about Young and his detour increased. The time he had wasted in order to play with his new toy could have cost them their lives. And this time Rush feared that he might not be capable of saving the crew.  
 _Destiny_ was safe, but any organic life would be eliminated. He was the genius when it came to the ship and the technology, but how could they win a war which they couldn't win? He hadn't the slightest idea how he could use the ship to save them all. It bothered him, but this time he needed the help of the military. At least they knew how to fight. If they had a chance though, that was a different matter. Quickly he grabbed his radio and tucked it into his belt. Then he set off to the CO's quarters. He didn't consider it necessary to inform him via radio, surely he'd been summoned anyway. He would probably wake the Colonel, but he didn't care about that.

TJ had prepared the herbs for Everett and was satisfied that he had fallen asleep only a few minutes later. She was also a proud that he had tried to keeps his hands off the alcohol. It was also a blessing that the herbs worked so well on him. Everett, like Rush, had not been getting enough sleep but at least in this case she could compensate.  
When she had confronted the stubborn Scot about his lack of sleep and the health risks, she was prepared to get a gruff and rude reply. Nevertheless she broached the subject from time to time; after all she was responsible for the health of the crew.  
After a while Everett had started to snore softly. Tamara stayed on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, then she walked over to the couch, and after a while she dozed off.

She woke up with a start a few moments later when someone knocked loudly on the door. She looked at Everett, but the herbs were doing a good job and he hadn’t woken up. Hesitantly she walked to the door, and was surprised to see Dr. Rush standing outside, was staring at her with wide eyes before his gaze slid over to the still sleeping CO.  
"Dr. Rush?" Tamara brought his attention back to her so she could set things straight before he jumped to conclusions. "I'm only here in my function as the medical officer, and the Colonel is not to be disturbed at the moment. Can I help you?"  
Rush concentrated on Tamara and said, "You better wake him, I have to tell him something very important."  
Tamara sighed softly. This was exactly the situation which she had hoped would not happen. She didn't want to wake Everett, and she wasn't even sure if she could. The dose she had given him had been quite strong.  
"I'm afraid that won't be possible," she said.  
"The Colonel himself requested to be informed immediately if something important happened. This is more than important. So if you would please be gracious enough to wake him?" Rush replied snappishly.  
"Dr. Rush, I believe that it is important, nevertheless I can't wake the Colonel at the moment. For… medical reasons, I'm sorry," she restated.  
The scientist narrowed his eyes and gave her a sharp look before he turned and left without another word.  
Tamara sighed and closed the door. If the Scot said it was important, she didn't doubt it. At least she would make sure that the Colonel didn’t sleep through the morning. It was the best she could do for Dr. Rush.

Rush was on his way back to the bridge. All the way there his thoughts were focused to the scene he had blundered into. Lieutenant Johansen in the Colonel's quarters at night, allegedly for medical reasons?  
He could think of only two possible explanations. Either they had something going on with each other (which Rush couldn’t care less about) or the Colonel was indeed in need of medical attention. If the latter was true, what was wrong with him?  
Had he suffered an injury during the attack? No, he wouldn't have withheld it. Then it dawned on Nicholas. When his eyes were wandering over the bed he had noticed the glass of water and the bag used for the herbs they had found on the last planet. Since he helped collect them, he also knew what they were good for. Lieutenant Johansen could use them for sleep disorders, as a mild sedative, and in higher doses even as a hallucinogenic. In the case of Colonel Young, he tended to a combination of a soporific and drug. And if he wasn't completely mistaken, he also knew the reason for the Colonel to take the herbs. A smirk played around his lips. This knowledge could prove to be very useful in the future, and he intended to use it, if it could benefit him. He became aware of the irony of the whole situation and he suppressed a disbelieving sound which surged up in his throat. First of all he had to make sure that he would be alive to use the information.  
As he walked he noticed the light dimmed slightly.  
 _Good, Miss Hansen is powering down systems_ , he thought, satisfied. The next moment he received a call from Lieutenant Scott.  
"Dr. Rush, this is Scott. The light is fading almost everywhere, and in some parts of the ship the power is gone. Do you have something to do with it?"  
Nicholas took out his radio and pushed the talk button.  
"It was necessary to shut down some systems to go easy on the energy reserves. Don't panic, as soon as the ship is reloaded we'll restart all systems again."  
"Did Colonel Young agree with it?" Scott asked skeptically.  
Rush rolled his eyes and replied, annoyed "First of all, I wouldn't take such measures if they weren't absolutely necessary, and secondly, the Colonel is currently indisposed. At least Lieutenant Johansen refuses to wake him. Rush out."  
Nicholas' cheek muscles twitched in amusement when he thought of the startled face of the Lieutenant. He couldn't imagine that the Colonel had told anyone of his small problem. Besides, he hadn't lied to the Lieutenant; Lieutenant Johansen had told the Scot that the Colonel wasn't well.  
A few moments later he entered the bridge, stepped behind Melody, and looked over her shoulder. He was satisfied to see that the young woman had managed to shut down all unimportant systems.  
"This should buy us some time" he said, and sat down in the Kirk-Chair.  
"Dr. Rush?" he heard the soft voice of the girl and looked at her.  
"Do you think we're going to make it?" she asked, and in her eyes, which were focused directly on his, he could see that she wanted to have a honest answer.  
He sighed imperceptibly and answered "We bought some time. Instead of thinking about unpredictable things, we better use it to find a solution."  
Melody swallowed and turned back towards her console.  
 _He doesn’t believe it, but he'll do everything in his power so that we can survive_ , she interpreted his words. _I should better help him instead of panicking. He's right. How can he know what'll happen?_  
The girl had guessed at such an answer, but had nevertheless hoped that he would say 'of course we're gonna survive.'  
"Shouldn't we ask Eli to help us?" Melody suggested. "He probably has some ideas."  
Rush had considered asking the young man, but he hesitated. Sure, they were all used to critical situations, and Eli had managed well so far. But those were situations which had occurred suddenly. This was something different; this was a slow announcement of the death for them all, and Nicholas couldn't think of anything the boy could do to change their fate. If they couldn't find a star to recharge at, they had no chance. And even if they did, the alien ship was clearly superior. He wanted to spare Eli panicking in the face of certain death, and wanted to spare himself dealing with it.  
He realized Melody was waiting for an answer.  
"I'm afraid, at the moment, he can't help us," he said. "Finding a star is our only chance."  
Melody looked over her shoulder and understood. She just nodded and turned around again.  
The next moment the doors of the bridge opened.  
"Dr. Rush, I want to know what's going on here immediately," Lieutenant Scott demanded. He was clearly trying to hold his temper.  
Rush didn't bother to look at him, instead staying focused on his display.   
"We have everything under control, Lieutenant. Perhaps you should get some sleep. I'll inform the Colonel in the morning."  
Scott walked over to the chair where Rush sat, leaned down, and put his arms on the armrests.  
"Dr. Rush, I asked you to tell me what is happening. The Colonel ordered me to keep him informed about your activities. Now, what – is – going – on – here?"  
Rush's facial expression darkened abruptly when he heard what Young had ordered his Lieutenant to do.  
Condescendingly he said, "Well well, so the Colonel keeps you occupied as his little spy."  
Scott removed his arms and straightened. Angry about his verbal slip, he took a deep breath and said, "You know very well that’s not true. Colonel Young is worried about the crew and ordered me to wake him immediately if something happened, and obviously something did. So would you please be so kind as to tell me what's going on here?"  
Rush now looked at him, considering.  
Of course he knew that he was right about Young, but he would talk about it later with the Colonel in person. They were in great trouble, and since he was sure that Young would immediately tell Lieutenant Scott everything anyway, he might as well inform the Lieutenant about the situation.  
If he was lucky, maybe he could avoid talking to Young.  
"Very well, Lieutenant. Miss Hansen!" he addressed his young assistant, who had been watching. "Show the Lieutenant what you found."  
Scott mumbled a "thank you" and went over to Melody. She opened the necessary files for him and handed him her laptop. Matt took a seat at a free console and started to read.  
Melody looked surreptitiously at the Lieutenant, whose face was becoming more and more terrified the more he read.  
He turned pale when he eventually looked to Rush, who just stared at him blankly.  
"Can we escape the ship?" Scott asked, feeling his throat suddenly go dry.  
"Only if we can replenish _Destiny_ in a star," Rush told him in no uncertain terms. "But even then I'm quite sure that the ship won't give up pursuit. It follows its programming and won't give up until its mission is successfully accomplished.”  
"I'll go to see the Colonel," Scott said with a rough voice.  
"Yes, try that," Rush said, and watched the lieutenant leave the bridge.


	8. Nemesis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's almost a year, but my beta reader was busy and we kind of lost track of this story. Now she has no time at all anymore, so this is another story that goes online without being checked by a native english speaking person. I'm sorry for that, I really tried to find some, but I couldn't.  
> Since I wrote the story first in german this is a translation. I'll never write any story again in german first, as it is a pain in my ass to try to translate it into english. The Google translator did the job here, so it might turns out weird sometimes. I looked over it, but since I'm not native english I can't correct things I don't know are wrong.   
> However, I thought I finish the story. I still have to translate the next chapters, so it might take a while.

On the way to the quarters of the Colonel, Matthew Scott did something that he rarely did and only if he was alone. He prayed. He prayed that they at least would get a chance to survive. He had nearly lost all hope so he turned to the highest authority he knew.  
Much too quickly for his taste he arrived at Colonel Young's quarters. With a bit more energy than usual he knocked at the doors.  
It took a moment before the doors opened, but not the resident of the quarters opened, but Tamara.  
"Lieutenant?" she asked caught by surprise and a bit dozy. "Has something happened?"  
"TJ, I have to speak to the Colonel" he dodged her question.  
Tamara looked briefly over her shoulder at the sleeping Everett and turned to Scott again.  
"Matt, this is not a good time." She hoped that she didn't have to explain anything else, but she also sensed that he was tensed.  
"TJ, I wouldn't ask you if it's not absolutely necessary. You need to wake the Colonel, please!"  
The young medic sighed and explained "Even if I want to, at the moment I simply can't. He took  
a soporific."  
Matt's eyes widened in surprise. Did the Colonel maybe had health issues? Well, actually that was none of his business, and he shoved his worries for his superior aside. If Tamara was here he had the best care he could have. But time was running out and he wanted to pass on what he had learned.  
"Lieutenant, is the ship or its crew in danger and will be destroyed within the next five hours?" Tamara asked.  
"Not necessarily."  
"I can see this is very important but it has to wait another five hours until he wakes up. I'm sorry. But I promise I'll let you know immediately when you can talk to him, okay? Until then – take the time and have some sleep."  
Scott realized that he wouldn't change TJ's mind. She had made it clear to him that she understood how important the issue was, but she couldn't do anything or rather – she wouldn't do anything. He just had to accept it and wait until next morning.  
"I understand. Thanks, TJ. Good night."  
"Good night." The doors closed again and Matt made his way back to the bridge again.  
It was impossible to think of any sleep and if he had to wait he wanted to be on the bridge where he got information first hand.

 

Dr. Rush was not very happy when the Lieutenant showed up. Unfortunately he couldn't force him to leave again so he simply tried to ignore his presence.  
The next few hours were uneventfully and both Rush and Melody were only monitoring the systems and energy levels.  
Matt had borrowed Melody's computer a second time to have a closer look at the translation.  
Sometime he must have been fallen asleep because he woke up with a start when he heard TJ's voice coming out of his radio.  
"Lieutenant, Colonel Young is waiting for you in his quarters," she informed him and Matt searched hastily for the device to answer.  
"I'm on my way. Scott out."  
He looked at Rush. The scientist had dark circles under the eyes and he looked like he could need a good meal and at least ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. But now wasn't the time for a nap. Matt was angry about himself that he had fallen asleep instead of thinking how to save the ship and its crew.  
"I'll go and inform Colonel Young," he said.  
The Scot obviously didn't care about it because he didn't even look up when he answered.   
"That was unmistakable."  
Matt held back a snappish answer and forced himself to say politely "Is there anything else I should tell him? Have you eventually found a star in the meantime?"  
Scott's question had both a slight hopeful, and desperate undertone what Rush didn't miss. Unfortunately he hadn't any good news for the Lieutenant.  
That was why he just said "No".  
Matt sighed and left the bridge.

"Come in," Young said when someone knocked at his door.  
After he woke up TJ had told him about his two late night visitors. First Dr. Rush and later Lieutenant Scott. The Colonel was extremely worried and angry about himself that he had taken the herbs in a critical situation. Surely that won't happen again.  
In the beginning he had been even mad about Tamara because she didn't wake him immediately.  
Only after she had explained to him that she could have woken him up, but would had to use some valuable and already scarce medics for that, he gave in. She had also told him that she had asked both men if the ship was in acute danger what they denied.  
After Tamara had informed Scott that he could now talk to the Colonel, she headed back to the infirmary to check for her patients.  
It took Scott a few minutes until he arrived in the Colonel's quarters of which Young thought it was an eternity.  
He had some trouble to keep his hands calm. He was worried what was so terrible that even Dr. Rush demanded to talk to him late night.  
When the doors finally opened, and he could see the serious-looking face of his Lieutenant, he felt even worse.  
"Lieutenant, come in and have a seat," he invited him in and Scott obeyed.  
"Col, we're in big trouble" he started after he had taken a seat on the couch.  
"I already got that. What's going on? And don't spare any details."  
Scott nodded and tried to give him a most accurate summary of the data he had read.

"The planet on which we found the ships was once inhabited," Scott began his narrative. "The records do not show how the inhabitants called themselves or the planet, but we can assume that their technology was much more developed than ours. They built various spaceships to explore the galaxy, but their missions seem not to have been successful. "  
"Wait a minute," Young interrupted. "I thought these little ships were more primitive?"  
"We thought so," Scott explained. "And actually they are, at least now. They were spaceship, but as the inhabitants did not find anything, they converted the ships to normal stratospheric ships."  
Young had an "A-ha" face and Scott continued with his story.  
"They were looking for other forms of life, but for their manned missions, it was probably too long to reach other inhabited planets; or to find them at all."  
Young interrupted him again and asked, "Was that before the Stargate was built?"  
Scott shrugged his shoulders. "If the dating is accurate, yes."  
Young's eyes widened. "That means these people have been dead or lost for centuries?"  
"The data suggests a certain point in time. Miss Hansen found records that the seed-ship, we encountered some time ago and the Ursini had settled down, had erected the gate around 100 years ago. The remnants of the city we have found, suggest that life ended there about 200 years ago, plus-minus 50 years. And at the same time on the whole planet. "  
"Do we know how this happened?"  
"Yes, but I have something else to tell you first, otherwise you will not have the connection, Colonel."  
Young nodded and implied to his subordinate that he might continue.  
"As I already told you, these people wanted to explore space. As they would probably have been traveling with a ship for years, alone and cut off in an emergency, they began to build a new ship similar to that of the ancient ones. Like _Destiny_ they created an artificial intelligence so the ship could repair itself in an emergency and contact them at any time. It had communication beacons on board which should be suspended at regular intervals. But as brilliant as this idea might have been, they made a vital mistake. "  
Scott paused, thinking about what the result had been.  
"And that was what exactly?" Young asked when Scott seemed to be lost in thoughts.  
Matt took a deep breath and then continued, "They wanted to make the ship and the AI perfect. It should be able to anticipate or deal with any kind of repairs, course corrections and problems that might occur. It was designed to eradicate faulty systems by itself. "

"Well, that's what our scientists probably would have tried to achieve as well," Young said thoughtfully.  
"But in that case, these people were too perfect. They programmed the AI to eliminate everything that was flawed. But they did not reckon that they were flawed too in the eyes of the AI. Unfortunately that became their undoing. When the ship was ready and the AI had initiated the first self diagnostic, it was completely self-sustaining. Some technicians who were still on board wanted to do a final check on the AI and probably did something, that the AI took as a faulty intervention.  
As a result it followed its programming and eliminated this source of error - the technicians were evaporated with its self-defense system.  
Of course the people immediately tried to deactivate the AI, but it was already too late. The ship was now seeing all organics as flawed, flew into a low orbit and extinguished all inhabitants. Therefore, we couldn't find any remains such as bones or anything else. They were completely vaporized. And we were also attacked with that specific weapon."  
While listening to his Lieutenant, Young had gone pale. Now he rose slowly and Scott literally could see the pieces of the puzzle becoming a picture in his superior's mind.  
"You're telling me, that the ship, that attacked us, is now going after us and wants to destroy us all? Because it is convinced we're flawed?"  
Scott looked down and answered quietly "I told you that we're in big trouble."  
Young sat down again and for a moment his mind was completely empty.  
"Nemesis" Scott said suddenly.  
"I beg your pardon?" Young asked, who didn't understand what Scott meant.  
"The name of the ship. It's called 'Nemesis'."  
Young sighed. "That fits," he only commented.

A few seconds passed silently, then Young asked "What does Rush say about this, does he have any idea how to get out of the situation again?"  
Scott shook his head.  
"He and Miss Hansen have shut down non-essential systems all over the ship to save energy. He said that if we can’t find a star soon, that's it then. And even if we find a star and reload the ship he thinks that the alien ship will continue to pursue us until it has reached its goal."  
"What means that we have to fight it with or without energy," Young murmured to himself.  
"That leaves the question if we can do anything at all. The weapons of _Destiny_ are our only way to attack the ship and you know about the weapon status better than anyone else."  
"So we have to use this new super weapon to blast this thing out of space," Young replied lost in thoughts.  
"We'd have to send someone out in the space suit, but we do not know how this weapon works in space, or works at all," Scott said.  
Young massaged his forehead while thinking. Scott fell silent too and thought hard about what they could do to defend themselves, but nothing came of him.  
"Assemble the military personnel" said Young. "Meeting at 0900 in the Gateroom. We have to come up with a defense strategy. Not a single word towards the civilians for now. The Gateroom will be off limits."  
"Yes, sir," Scott replied jaggedly and turned to leave until something else came to his mind.  
"Sir, what about Rush?"  
"I'll go see him now," the CO said, and Scott nodded. Together they left Young's quarters and walked down the aisle until their paths finally parted.

Melody had trouble keeping her eyes open. She had been staring at the display for hours, and they still showed always the same to her - nothing. Surreptitiously she looked over her shoulder to check on Nicholas. At some time he had taken a seat at the console in the front and Melody could see that his fingers repeatedly pressed different buttons.  
 _He is used to work long hours_ , she once again thought for herself. However, he looked as if he would collapse at any moment.  
She herself had the urgent need at least to drink something and the same should apply to Dr. Rush. So she got up and said, "I'll get some water from the mess hall. I'll be right back."  
Nicholas did not answer and Melody hesitated for a moment, but she was sure he had heard her. So she hurried to the doors just to catch the exact moment when the doors opened to ran into Colonel Young who was about to enter the bridge.  
"Ouch!", Nicholas heard a cry from Melody and he whirled around.  
Of course the massive figure of the Colonel was more stable than Melody, aside from the fact that he had had more momentum, so the girl had fallen directly against the railing.  
She had landed on the ground and grimaced while she massaged her aching back.  
Young, surprised by the sudden obstacle in his way, stepped back a few steps and stammered an apology. Meanwhile Rush had hurried to the girl to help her up carefully.  
"Melody, are you all right?" He asked softly, put an arm around her upper body and pulled her up. During the short, but close contact with her he felt that gentle tingling again that covered his skin and his heart beat a little faster.  
"Yes, thank you, Dr. Rush," she muttered and groaned briefly when her back protested painfully against the movement.  
"Do you need medical support?" Colonel Young asked, and stepped closer.  
When she stood safely again, Nicholas let go of her and returned to his station. Melody's cheeks were slightly red and she almost wished that the Colonel had better thrown her down the stair. Maybe then she might have felt the touch of Nick a little longer.  
"No, just a bruise. I'll better leave," she said and squeezed past the Colonel.  
The CO glanced at her for a moment with raised eyebrows, but then concentrated on the actual reason of his visit and was not exactly unhappy that he was alone with Rush. The Scot did not seem to be happy about Young's visit (what the Colonel had already expected), but at the moment he looked not only indignant, he actually looked angry. Everett decided to be careful. Was Rush still so angry about the detour he had ordered? He intended to find out.  
"Dr. Rush," he greeted him respectfully. "Lieutenant Scott has told me about Nemesis and that we still have no energy. Is there a star within reach?"  
Rush did not answer.  
Young took a step closer and asked louder: "Rush?"  
"What, didn't your little spy tell you everything what's going on here?" The Scot contemptuously asked and Young involuntarily made a step back again when he heard his voice quivering with irony and anger. But he instantly steeled himself for the situation and replied as calmly as possible, "Lieutenant Scott is not my spy, Dr. Rush, I just asked him to keep me informed.  
Rush snorted incredulously then turned in his chair to face Young.  
"Save your excuses, Colonel, you certainly do not need to ingratiate yourself with me.  
"We're beyond that stage, don't you think?"  
Rush's eyes flashed dangerously and he had folded his arms in front of his chest.  
Immediately the agreement in which they had both promised to be open to each other and to bury the hatchet came to the Colonel's mind. He had not abided their agreement - again. To prevent himself from saying something he would later regret he ran his hand through his hair and his thoughts drifted off for a few seconds to the AI and the scenario in which it had transferred him. In this moment he only wished that he had tortured Rush for real and not only experienced it in his head. But he had to remain calm, whether he wanted it or not, they all depended on the scientist. Now more than ever.  
Young breathed deeply then said calmly, "Yes, you're right. But maybe we'll talk about it another time. After what the Lieutenant had told me about this other ship our only chance to defend ourselves is by using the weapons of _Destiny_. Do you have a plan already?"

Rush snorted again, but then turned back and said, " _Destiny_ is no match for the other ship. Especially not without energy, IF - and I point it out once again - IF we should find a star to recharge in time then our only hope is not to fight, but to take a flight."  
"The Lieutenant told me though that this ship is only out to destroy humans in our case and will not give up so quickly. Shall we run forever?" Young's voice sounded slightly indignant; as a soldier he always preferred a fight, at least if it was a persistent situation.  
"Once again you didn't listen to me, Colonel," Rush said. "I said, IF we can recharge _Destiny_ at all ... at the moment, it does not even look like that. Our energy is dying away quickly. Miss Hansen has already shut down every system she could, but the other ship has no energy problems."  
He turned back to the Colonel and looked seriously at him. "Most likely you'll get your fight, Colonel. But I cannot help you; you want to lead this ship and its crew, here is your chance." He folded his arms again and looked at Young relentlessly.  
Everett felt this rage rising in him again.  
"It should be in your interest to save your own ass, Rush," he said but regretted his words immediately. It wouldn't do him any good to annoy the Scot. He knew from personal experience that he would then only get the opposite of what he wanted.  
Rush's eye twitched slightly, then he said, "Teasing me won't get you out of trouble, Colonel. I told you right from the beginning that this detour was a mistake. So don't blame me for something you got us in. Contrary to you I've worked throughout the night to find some way to survive."  
Rush slowly became steamed up and laughed briefly contemptuously before he continued attacking the Colonel. "I even wanted to inform you immediately after Miss Hansen broke the code, but Lieutenant Johansen said you needed your sleep. What was it this time, Colonel, a Tête-à-Tête, or did you get drunk in Brody's still and Lieutenant Johansen had to hold hands with you?"  
Rush had barely finished when the Colonel had already punched in his face that wiped the Scot out of his chair.  
Young's face was red with anger and while Rush was slowly getting back to his feet and wiping the blood from his lip and nose the CO hissed, "Don’t overdo it, Rush. I know I've made mistakes, but you of all should be careful what you throw at me. You're not an angel though. However, can you do something or not?"  
Rush, whom by the lack of sleep and the problems they just had, had slipped these words, regretted only that he already had shot his bolts. He had intended to save this for a more favorable opportunity.  
He got to his work again immediately, and as much as he felt the desire to revenge himself for this punch, he also knew that he would lose to Young in a scuffle as usual. He swallowed his anger halfway down, wiped over his nose and lip that were still bleeding, and sat back in his chair.  
"If I find something, I'll let you know," he said, and turned ostentatiously away from the Colonel.  
Young took a deep breath to calm down and then said with a forced, calm voice "Rush, we have to stop this. We need to work together, especially now. I'm sorry I hit you, but my private life is none of your business and I ask you to respect that."  
Rush turned back to the Colonel once more. "Then it would be time for you to start trusting me, Colonel. Do you really think that I don't care about the ship and the crew? But I can't perform miracles. Without energy the ship won't be useful for us either.”  
Young lowered his head and grimaced. "I understood that, Rush. But if we do not find a star then we need a defense plan. There has to be something we can do."  
Rush thought for a moment. He had already thought of sending the crew through a Stargate and then destroy it, so they were safe from Nemesis, but for that they first had to find a gate. On the other hand the scientist still doubted that they would be safe. If the ship had been able to track down _Destiny_ , it would surely find the planet sooner or later, even if they would destroy the Stargate. And then they really had no chance. No, they had to stay on _Destiny_ and buy some time to think about an effective defense.  
"I'm afraid not, Colonel," Rush said.  
Young nodded thoughtfully.  
"Very well, doctor. I'm going to brief the military staff, let's hope the new weapon can help us. However, see to it to find another way to get us to safety and let me know immediately if you have an idea."  
"Sure," Rush replied briefly and turned away from the Colonel again. But he couldn't bite back a little side blow as a small act of revenge and muttered, "I will try to hold my ideas back during the night so I don't have to disturb you."  
Young, who had already been about on his way to leave bridge stopped short and clenched his hands.  
 _No Everett, don't. Don't rise to provocation_ , he said to himself. It cost him a lot to stay calm, but he could almost understand Rush this time. So he left the bridge without saying another word.

Rush breathed in relief when the Colonel had left the bridge. He was glad to be alone again. He leaned back in his chair, put his head on the head-rest, and closed his eyes with a small sigh. He cautiously ran over his face with his right hand again to wipe the blood away and stroke some hair out of his face. He had to find a solution!  
Lost in thoughts he didn't realize in the first moment that his display had changed. Not until he opened his eyes again he saw the star, the sensors of _Destiny_ had just found and he froze. Disbelievingly, he stared at the flashing point, but it did not disappear.  
At the same time the doors of the bridge opened again, and he heard the voice of his young colleague.  
"Dr. Rush, I've got you some water for you and a bowl ..." Melody's voice died when she stood behind him and saw the message.  
For a while, neither of them said anything, but then Rush tapped some buttons and the flashing point was replaced by a closer view of the star _Destiny_ had found. Data and numbers were shown on the display, and he heard Melody's voice again, which sounded unusually soft for such a hopeful discovery: "Will we make it there in time?"  
Rush's brief moment of euphoria had also disappeared already when he turned to her after a few seconds. Melody looked at him hopefully, but he knew she knew his answer. So he said what both did not want to hear.  
"Probably not, the alien ship will have catch up with us just before we reach the star."  
The girl put the water glass and the bowl next to Rush and used the moment to gain her composure again.  
"And if we're able to save some more energy?" she suggested timidly.  
Rush shook his head slightly. "That would give us a few minutes, but it is not enough to escape," he said. "However" he suddenly added, stood up and looked at her, "it won't do any harm to us either."  
"Yes, Dr. Rush," Melody said. At least she could do something now, even if it would probably not be enough. Quickly she sat down in her place and began to look for more systems that she could shut down.  
"Dr. Rush?", She addressed the scientist after a while. "Shall I shut down the Gateroom as well, or do you think we could still use the Gate?"  
Rush's corners of his mouth twitched in amusement since Melody had obviously a similar or the same thought he had had about the gate.  
"Shut down the Gate System completely. If there’s a possibility to survive it’s only on _Destiny_ ," he replied.  
"I cut the power now," Melody confirmed. That it had worked Rush noticed just a few seconds later.  
"Rush, what the hell happened to the energy in the gateroom?", Young's voice came off his radio.  
Nicholas, who was also thinking that he had already had to report his discovery to the Colonel, decided to make up for the failure.  
"We've discovered a star where we can reload _Destiny_ , but it was necessary to save a little more energy to get there."  
"And you couldn't tell me that before?" Young replied angrily.  
Rush rolled his eyes what of course nobody noticed. "The star has just appeared on sensors, Colonel, and I was just going to inform you about it.  
There was a brief silence, then Young's voice sounded again: "Very well. Turn everything off what is necessary to save energy, I'll inform the crew. Young out."  
A bit annoyed, Rush threw the radio in front of him on the console. The Colonel would probably appear soon again on the bridge. He should be right.


	9. The Silence before the Storm

The conversation with Young, who actually appeared almost two hours later on the bridge, was brief and concise. Rush told him that they could reach the star though, but Nemesis would probably catch up with them before or just when they approached the star. So their chances of survival had only increased minimal. Pensively Young left the bridge again and as he knew they would reach the star not within the next 18 hours, he ordered Dr. Rush and Melody off the bridge to go to their quarters and get some rest.  
To his astonishment, the Scot didn't object, and after summoning Eli to the bridge, Rush ordered him to supervise their course and energy levels, and said to the young man, "If you discover something unusual, let me know immediately, understood?"  
Eli was a bit surprised. They had often flown the Destiny into a star, so what should be so unusual this time? But he promised him and his eyes wandered to Melody. She looked very pale and seemed to bite her lip, almost as if she knew something he did not know.  
"Miss Hansen," Rush now turned to the young woman. "Let's go."  
Melody could not believe what she was hearing. Leave the bridge? Now of all times? She felt the fear continue to rise in her. On the bridge at least she could do something, but how was she supposed to find some sleep?  
 _Just pull yourself together, Mel_ , she thought trying to take deep breaths. But somehow she did not succeed. When she realized that Rush was looking at her strangely she nodded, stood up and followed him out. Col. Young had left the bridge shortly before them and had already disappeared when the two of them stepped outside the doors.  
"I can’t go to sleep now, Dr. Rush. What if Nemesis shows up? Shouldn't we better stay on the bridge?" Despite her excitement she had kept her voice low. Nicholas suddenly put both hands on her upper arms and squeezed them softly.  
"Melody," he said confidentially, and kept his voice low too, "this is probably our only opportunity to find some rest." Eli monitors the systems and at the moment we can't do more than that. But when it comes down to facing Nemesis we have to function. It won't do any good to us if we waste our energy now when we need it later. So try to find some rest. "  
He let go of her again and looked into her eyes. Once again her cheeks had gotten this light pink tone, and during the touch Nick had noticed again that his heart beat had speeded up a bit.  
Melody was electrified by his sudden touch, and a knot in her seemed to be loosed. She lost herself in his his brown eyes and had to concentrate very hard on his words to get them all.  
When he let go of her she felt as if something had been taken from her.  
And then an almost overwhelming fear overcame her, more a sudden wave of panic. She did not want Nick to die. She did not want Eli or anyone else to die on this ship and she herself did not want to die either. There was something between Nick and her, a connection that finally gave her what she needed. The AI had been right when she had predicted that to her. She needed Nicholas more than she'd thought. Only his aura helped her t focus on her work. He kept her in balance, and these little moments in which he cared for, was worried for her, or touched her diminished the grief of the loss of her sister a little more every time, and the perpetual pain she bore in her heart became more bearable.  
She needed Nick ... and she loved him.  
The realization hit her like a blow and at the same moment she realized that they would be dead by tomorrow. Panic swelled up inside her and she wanted nothing more than to trash around and scream. But Nicholas was still standing in front of her, his face expressing concern. Melody gasped, she was choked by fear, and she was desperately looking for a support.  
"Melody!" This time Nicholas grabbed her tightly at the upper arms, noticing that something was wrong with her.  
 _She has a panic attack_ , he thought immediately. He knew the signs and wrapped his arms around her holding her tight to his chest.  
Melody clung to his forearms and breathed heavier. Her chest and throat suddenly seemed to tighten and she wasn't able to breathe any longer! Her knees got weak and she became dizzy. Her heart seemed to start to race and she began to tremble.  
But suddenly her face was on Nick's shoulder. She felt his heartbeat, his warmth, smelled his scent. He held her firmly in his arms and tried to calm her down. Gradually the panic subsided and she could breathe again. She relaxed in Nick's arms and closed her eyes.

The moment of imminent weakness was over, and Melody opened her eyes eventually. She felt better and wondered why she was kneeling on the ground as did Nicholas who still held her close to her. Now his embrace loosened and the girl lifted her head, and looked into his eyes. He looked extremely worried, and she could hear again what he was saying to her.  
"... calm down. I'd better take you to the infirmary," Nicholas had just finished his sentence and got ready to get up and pull her up.  
"No ... no, please don't," Melody was very emphatic about her request and allowed Nicholas to help her back to her feet. When she stood he loosened his grip a little, but was still holding her since he didn't quite trust her condition.  
Melody breathed deeply several times and then moved slowly away from him by herself.  
"It seems you had a panic attack," he said, and made a step back to give her some space.  
"I ..." she began, but she didn't know what to say. "The prospect of not knowing what's going on, and when Nemesis shows up has probably overwhelmed me," she quickly framed an excuse. She could not tell him the truth.  
Nicholas looked at her skeptically. He knew she was hiding something from him, but he didn't pushed her. Instead he only said, "I understand. However, wouldn't it be better if you let Lt. Johansen check on you?"  
"No, that's not necessary. I'm sorry I lost my nerves, Dr. Rush. But ... thank you for... helping me," she stammered, turning red. She felt embarrassed by what had happened right now, but Rush just waved his hand.  
"At least you should try to lay down a bit, probably it's the best if I accompany you to your quarters."  
In the first moment Melody intended to refuse, but her knees still felt a bit weak, and the presence of Nicholas helped her to keep her nerves. So she answered, "Thank you, Dr. Rush."  
Rush led her slowly back to her quarters where they arrived about ten minutes later.  
"Is there anything you need?" Rush offered her his help.  
Melody was as touched and grateful about his care, and sat down on her bed.  
"No, thank you," she said, though she'd much rather have him staying with her. At least for a while.  
"Very well. I'll better leave you alone now." Rush turned and stepped towards the door and in that moment Melody felt her fear increasing again. She didn't want to be alone.  
"Dr. Rush!" She cried before he had reached the door.  
Nicholas turned around startled and saw that Melody pulled on the neckline of her shirt as if her shirt was too tight for her neck.  
 _She is still scared_ , he realized, and sat down on the edge of the bed without a request, and reached for her hand.  
Immediately he knew that he had made the right decision because the girl squeezed his hand back and seemed to relax again.  
"Maybe it is better if I stay with you for a moment," Nick said hesitantly, and Melody nodded gratefully.  
"Thank you, Dr. Rush. Right now I don't want to be alone," she admitted.  
Nick looked at their hands that were still holding each other then into her eyes. Her eyes were so inviting, bluish green and deep that he wanted nothing more than to look at them forever .  
"Will you stay with me until I'm asleep?" She then asked softly and hesitantly while she stretched out on the bed.  
Nicholas nodded. "If course."  
Melody smiled closed her eyes, and sighed deeply. "Thank you, Dr. Rush." She was still squeezing his hand though, but it didn't take long before she fell asleep.  
Nick had had enough time during the short quarter of an hour to look at her silky, brown hair and study each of her facial features. Her relaxed facial expression, the even breathing, and her diminishing hand pressure told him, that she had finally fallen asleep. He waited a few more minutes until he carefully removed his hand from hers and left her quarters quietly.

 

Along the way, he couldn't stop thinking about the incident. Of course, Melody was still young and he could understand that she was afraid of what was inevitably coming to them, but so far they had been in some critical situations and the girl had never acted as she did today. No, there was something else that she wasn't telling him and he was worried about it. At the same time, he was angry at himself about how his body had responded to her and that he was so worried about her. He strictly refused to admit in the meantime Melody meant as much to him as Mandy, perhaps even more. Aside from the fact that Simeon had murdered Dr. Perry, Mandy had actually never really been there. Of course he had loved her personality and on the earth her body too, but an exchange of affection had only been possible on Destiny, but never really with her. He missed Mandy's voice and her appearance. He had never regret he had made it to Destiny, but after a while, the absence of Mandy was something that he was painfully missing. And then Melody had entered his life. She was like Mandy, not only her appearance. She was also very intelligent and even more important she seemed to understand him. She knew what Gloria had meant to him, and later Dr. Perry, and she seemed to be holding out his whims even defending him. And now she would die too …

Nicholas shook his head and tried to focus on something else. He had to find a solution and thinking about the girl only distracted him.  
When Col. Young had banished him off the bridge, he had really considered to have a few hours of sleep, but now he didn't think of it anymore, far too much things crossed his mind.  
Maybe they could somehow use the star's energy not only to reload the ship, but to disable Nemesis or at least incapacitate it. Vague ideas came to his mind, all related to the structure and reaction processes of a star, but he didn't see a way to redirect energy. Then he considered to use the strange weapon which the Colonel had found. If he only had enough time to analyze and study its structure and the way it worked. Maybe they could install the weapon somehow on the outer hull. Or maybe at the Shuttle!  
This idea gave him a little hope. Maybe they actually had a chance now. He immediately had to get the weapon from the Colonel and start the installation. But that wasn’t possible until Destiny would drop out of hyperspace. But what would happen if they started the shuttle just before flying Destiny into the star? The shuttle didn't need to fly into the corona, maybe they would make it and as soon as Destiny was fully charged, they could dock the shuttle or use it immediately in a fight.  
He reckoned that the plan had only a small chance to succeed, but it was better than nothing.  
So he picked up his radio and opened a channel to Col. Young.

The briefing with his people had not been very successful, Young summarized on the way to the infirmary. They had been discussed how to defend themselves against Nemesis, but they didn't have enough information and also much too less effective weapons. Of course Destiny had also weapons, and the main cannon was surely effective, but they needed energy and Young didn't trust that they would find a star in time.  
It would result in simply reacting to a possible attack. But how could they attack a ship with their hand-guns, that was attacking from space? Young didn't know what to do and could only hope that Dr. Rush would come up with something. He became more and more uneasy when even the scientist had no solution at hand. It seemed as if they had found an opponent, whom they couldn't defeat.  
 _At least this misery here will finally be over_ , Everett thought about his imminent death. Now he felt the need to settle some of his affairs.  
 _Actually, there's only one important thing I have to take care of,_ he corrected himself. He had to talk to TJ.

He was greeted with a friendly "Hey" by the medic, when he arrived at the infirmary.  
"Hey," he replied, looking around for the patients before he said in a low voice "TJ, do you have a moment?"  
"Of course." She made a gesture with her head towards the back area.  
"Are you alright, Everett?" She asked, noticing at the same moment that this question seemed completely out of place. Nothing was alright of course.  
But Everett knew what she had meant and stepped closer.  
"TJ, I do not know to what end this will come, but I'd like to let you know something. No, please let me talk," he added hastily, realizing that Tamara was just opening his mouth to interrupt him This time he needed to go first. To his relief, she obeyed and waited.

"I just wanted to tell you that you are a fantastic woman, doctor, friend and soldier, Tamara Johansen. Even if you may thought so, but I do not regret any second of our time together. What I honestly regret is the fact that I hid from everyone that we were together. Yet I had shown to the whole world what you mean to me. And I am very, very sorry that I admit it to myself too late. When you told me that you were pregnant I was shocked in the first moment, but then I was looking forward so much to become a father. Losing the baby and also losing you has hurt me more than I might have shown you. I will always love you, Tamara, but I also see that you don't love me anymore. But that's okay. I just want you to be happy even if it's not with me. You're a very special woman, please don't ever forget that." When he had finished his confession, he quickly gave her a soft but intense kiss on her forehead, then turned to go. Tamara’s lips were trembling and tears almost welled in her eyes. She knew she was supposed to say something, but she couldn't. She was shocked that she seemed to be more to him than just a simple affair and that he had been so much looking forward to her child. On the other hand she was deeply touched that he had finally shown his true feelings.  
But he was right, she no longer loved him. Her heart belonged to someone else in the meantime. Her love for Everett was buried with her daughter and she would leave it at that. The pain was too great. She let him go and put her hand over her mouth to held back a sobbing.  
Everett was a little disappointed that she did not stop him. Deep in his heart he had wished for nothing more than her hugging him and telling him that she would still love him. But he had to accept that it was over now.  
So he shut his feelings away, turned back into the hard soldier and went to his quarters. He needed a moment for himself.

 

Everett had been sitting in his chair for nearly fifteen minutes, holding a glass of Brody's finest in his hand, which he had fetched on his way back. But he had not drank anything yet. As if hypnotized, he stared down at the glass with the golden liquid, swaying it slightly around on the table, lost in thoughts. He thought of nothing, just watched the liquid move in small waves and was satisfied with it. He could have stayed like this for the rest of his life. Maybe he even would; there were only a few hours left.  
"Col. Young, this is Rush, where are you?"  
 _Oh great, exactly the one I needed to hear_ , Young thought annoyed, when Rush's voice tore him out of his own little universe.  
 _Didn’t I tell him to go to sleep earlier?_ came to his mind. He sighed. That was typical Rush again.  
"What is it, Rush?" He asked.  
"Col., I need the weapon you brought from the planet, maybe we can use it effectively, but time is running out."  
Although he was supposed to be happy that the scientist may have found a way out, he didn’t. He did not care. He had prepared for the end, had said what had needed to be said and had made his peace.  
"Col. Young?" Rush's voice was urgent when the CO did not answer.  
Everett sighed, quickly tipped off the drink, then pressed the talk button.  
"I'll bring it to you. Just tell me where to go."  
“To the docking bay. And then I need two people in spacesuits here as soon as the Destiny drops out of hyperspace."  
Young frowned, but confirmed. Then he made his way to the armory.

Melody started from her sleep. She had had a nightmare and was relieved that she was in her quarters.  
How long had she slept? Had they already arrived? And what about Nemesis?  
The uncertainty overcame her again, and she was forced to take a few deep breaths and remember Nicholas, so that she would not be overwhelmed by fear again. How he had held her in his arms, cared for her ... that helped and her gaze glided over to her bedside table where her alarm clock stood. She realized that just an hour had passed and she still had time to come up with something.

Somehow, from the beginning, she had already felt that she had overlooked something in the data. There had to be a weak spot.  
Melody got up, grabbed her laptop and started working through the files again.  
When she came to the section where the AI was discussed, she paused.  
It was not the ship they had to fight, it was the intelligence that inhabit it. But how could they approach her, if not even the builders could have done it?  
"Somehow we'll have to get back in the ship and tap into the systems," she mumbled, then remembered they had someone on board who knew more about it than anyone else.

"Gwen!", She shouted, and seconds later the image of her dead sister appeared in front of her.  
"Hello Melody," the AI greeted her back.  
"Gwen, are you aware what's going on?" Melody asked excitedly.  
The AI shook his head. "I was inactive for quite a while. You reactivated me."  
Melody hastily told about Nemesis what had happened to the away team, and then asked, "You're an AI, can’t you help us? We need to find a way to shut down Nemesis."  
Melody’s expression clearly told the AI that all of her remaining hope was relying on her and the information she could give. Unfortunately, she couldn’t help her.  
"Melody," she began softly, "to destroy me, my habitat must be destroyed; in my case, the Destiny. For Nemesis it will be the same, you must destroy the ship - completely.  
Melody's expression spoke volumes as she said softly, "And that's exactly what we can’t do - the Destiny is clearly inferior - and so are we."

"Melody ..." Gwen said in a comforting tone, "You cannot give up hope."  
"Oh Gwen, not even Dr. Rush think we can do it.  
For a moment, the AI did not answer until she finally said, "Well, as far as I could tell from the internal sensors, Dr. Rush is probably busy building a gun with Col. Young on the shuttle."  
"What!?!" Melody exclaimed. "He wanted to lie down, but he sends me to sleep, this ..."  
Melody was a little annoyed that she was wasting time and felt guilty that she had fallen asleep. And why didn’t Nicholas contact her?  
"Gwen, I have to go, maybe they need my help!"  
Without waiting for an answer Melody ran out of her quarters. The AI stood there pensive for a while, then disappeared again.


	10. Defensive actions

When Young appeared with the gun, Nicholas spent some time to examine it. He wanted to find out if it would also work in space, and if there was a way to operate it by a remote control like _Destiny's_ main gun. If he’d manage to link a control unit to the trigger it would probably work. But that would take some time, precious time he didn’t have.  
He thought about to get Eli down here to have another pair of hands when suddenly, and to his surprise, Melody showed up.  
“Miss Hansen? You should rest,” Rush said keeping his voice neutral. In the presence of Col. Young he didn’t want to show he was worried about her, and prefered to see her getting some sleep. To his relief she appeared more relaxed by now, and it seemed she had manage to suppress her anxiety. At least that’s what the scientist was hoping for. But how could she know that he was here and needed her help?  
_Well, it doesn’t matter. She’s here and she can help_ , he thought and focused on the task to get this weapon operational.  
“Miss Hansen, we have to see to it to control this weapon via remote control. Come here, your hands are small what qualifies you best to perform a little operation here.  
“What exactly would you like me to do?” she asked immediately, and kneeled down at the Scot’s side who made same space for her to show her the inner workings of the weapon.

This was Young’s cue to give the two of a little space. He couldn’t do anything, and he took the time to let his mind wander. The despondency he felt earlier had turned into a little bit of hope again, and he was thinking if there was anything he could do to improve Rush’s plan. There was no doubt who’d be in the shuttle; Scott was the best pilot, and Greer the best shot, yet he had his doubts about the efficiency of the weapon. It was too small, designed for hand use only. He didn’t think it had enough firepower to deactivate or destroy the large ship.  
It was true that Greer had managed to shoot down the ship that had attacked them on the planet, but compared to Nemesis it had been tiny, and he had been lucky to hit its engines. They also didn’t know at all if the weapon would be operational in space. Yet it was their only chance of survival.  
Young’s radio crackled for a second before he could hear Eli’s voice.  
“Col. Young? The alien ship just appeared on sensors again. Shall I wake Dr. Rush?”  
“That’s not necessary, Eli. Dr. Rush is with me and heard you.” Young looked into Rush’s eyes who had looked at him too hearing Eli’s words.  
“Keep an eye on that ship, and report in every half hour. And Mr. Wallace,” Young’s voice became more a whisper now, “keep this for yourself, did I make myself clear? The people who should know about this do know.”  
“Y-Yes Colonel,” Eli answered, and Young could hear his confusion.  
“Good. Young out.”  
Rush nodded at him briefly what probably meant he agreed with him, ordering Eli not to spread out news yet. Young sighed. Time was up, it was getting serious.  
“Rush, do you still need me here?”  
“No. Just make sure we have two people ready when we drop out of FTL. And send some people into the control room, I’d suggest Volker, Park and Brody. We also need some people near the weapon’s system. If we can reload _Destiny_ in the star, there might be some conduits that’ll overload that need to be bypassed immediately.”  
“Of course. If you need anything else, just radio me.”  
Rush didn’t answer, but this time Young didn’t bother.

It took more time than the Scot had anticipated until Melody and he managed to install a control unit which was compatible after some modifications with the alien technology.  
“Dr. Rush, what’s your status?” Young’s voice interrupted his work.  
“Mr. Wallace let me know _Destiny's_ dropping out of hyperspace within the next half an hour. Can I tell my people to get into the spacesuits already? Or do you need some more time?”  
Rush grabbed his radio.  
“Affirmative. They should be ready when we slow down. The weapon will be ready in a few minutes.”  
“Copy that. Young out.”

Rush closed the cover of the weapon again, and addressed Melody.  
“You better go to the bridge, I’ll be there as well in a few more moments.”  
“Okay, shall I send Eli away?” she asked.  
Rush shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. In a hour at most everyone will know what’s happening anyway. And we might need him. Try to bring him up to speed in a ...gentle way.”  
“I’ll try.” Saying that she stood up, and left the scientist who was performing a last and final check at the console in the shuttle.  
“Dr. Rush?” he heard suddenly a voice coming from behind him, and turned around. He narrowed his eyes when he saw who paid him a visit. He didn’t reckon with that encounter.  
“There’s something we need to talk about,” the person said.

 

“Wait, what?” Eli’s shouted, as he stared at Melody with wide eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”  
Melody had just told him what they had found out about Nemesis, and desperately tried to make it sound not like the sword of Damocles that was hovering over their heads.  
But she couldn’t lull him, as Eli understood immediately the seriousness of their situation.  
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” he ranted at her. “Maybe I could have found a solution…”  
Melody suddenly felt terrible guilty. Of course he was right, but they only had said nothing to protect him.  
“Eli,” she began, and her voice was low. Without even realizing it she lifted her hands in a  
defense gesture.  
“I’m sorry, but Dr. Rush and I have only thought it would be easier for everyone on board if you go on living the last days without being afraid. Believe me, knowing it was… was terrible!”  
But Eli was furious and couldn’t get anything out of her explanation.  
“Oh great, did you actually think some people would like to know in time when they have to kick the bucket? Maybe try to finish some unfinished business? Maybe I had liked to say goodbye to my mom, or… others would like to have time to make their farewells. But of course that’s nothing either of the two of you would think about, because you don’t have someone left on earth who you care for!”  
His hard and offending words hit Melody like someone punched her in her face. She went pale, and tumbled a step backwards.  
“Eli…” she stumbled, but he cut her off.  
“No, don’t even start with ‘Eli’. Damn it, you should have told me, Mel. You should have told everyone!”  
Melody’s lips trembled, and she didn’t know what to say. She just knew that he was right. Neither she nor Dr. Rush had thought that there was someone left on earth who would care about them. At least about the most of them.  
“I’m sorry,” she only whispered before she turned to hide in her chair. Her hands were trembling so much that she didn’t manage to hit any buttons the first time. She also didn’t dare to turn around. It was very likely her last hour alive, and it was her fault that Eli was terrible mad at her.  
She could hear him something mumbling angrily, and tried to duck in her chair. Why didn’t Dr. Rush appear? Didn’t he say he would be there in a few moments? He could probably handle Eli a lot better than her.

It took a while until the scientist appeared on the bridge.  
When Melody saw him, a queasy feeling overcame her. Something wasn’t right. Although he seemed to be normal, there was something in his expression that scared her, but Melody couldn’t put a finger on it. Or maybe she was overreacting; again.  
In this moment Nicholas looked at her, and Melody’s eyes wandered briefly to Eli, then back to him, and the Scot seem to understand her unspoken message.  
Actually, her subtle hint towards the MIT drop-out wasn’t necessary at all, because Eli seemed anything else than calm, and his face expressed clearly his anger and consternation.  
“Mr. Wallace,” Rush addressed him, “I assume Miss Hansen told you about Nemesis?”  
His voice was calm, and neutral while he sat down into the Kirk chair.  
“Yeah, you know, it’s not that I would have liked to know that we’re all going to kick the bucket in a few hours.” Eli’s reply was dripping of cynicism, and Rush raised his eyebrows.  
“Be assured that we had good reasons not to shout it from the rooftops, Mr. Wallace”, he rebuked him, but Eli was still hopping mad, and turned around by now to give his boss a piece of his mind.  
“I could have helped you, I’m the math genius here! Why didn’t you tell me? And I really would like to have had enough time to make my farewell to my mother!”  
Rush only looked at him, not a bit impressed by his ranting. When Eli eventually became quiet Rush only said, “You couldn’t have done anything, Mr. Wallace. We considered all possible options, and our only hope is that Col. Young’s team manage to attach the alien weapon to the shuttle and face Nemesis. I thought it would be best not to tell you, and as you can see I did the right thing; there are some situations in which you don’t have yourself under control. But we need to remain level-headed here. So either you pull yourself together, or you better go into your quarters if you wish to continue ranting around like a three year old.”  
Rush’s words had the effect of a cold shower on Eli, and the Scot didn’t even look at him anymore. Instead he opened a channel to the shuttle to get a status update.  
Eli could only stare at Rush. He had taken any wind out of his sails. He looked at Melody angrily, but she had turned around and pretended not to have heard anything.  
Rush’s words were still bothering him, but they also had brought him back to senses.  
_Okay, maybe they had their reasons_ , he thought, and realized he was actually more angry because they hadn’t let him in. After all he was the math genius, and Eli didn’t like being left out. Since he had figured out what really bothered him he tried to shove his feelings away, and focus on the problem.  
“We’ll drop out of FTL in less than half an hour,” Eli said calmly.  
“Good, inform Col. Young ten minutes before. His people need to be ready, we don’t have time for any delays,” Rush said.  
“Once we’re out of hyperspace Nemesis will catch up soon,” Eli added after he checked the data.  
“Yes, Mr. Wallace, that’s exactly why we need to hurry.”  
Eli pouted, but didn’t say anything.

The next minutes time seemed to stand still, and then eventually Eli activated his radio to inform Col. Young like Rush had ordered him.  
_So, this is it_ , Melody thought, and her heart beat faster. _Don’t lose your nerves now._  
The slight trembling of her hands was the only sign for her tension, and she mentally prepared herself to fly the ship as quickly as possible into the star as soon as Rush would order her. But first the shuttle had to depart.  
And then they dropped out of hyperspace. Melody felt again this strange moment of disorientation every time the ship dropped off or went into FTL.  
“Colonel?” Rush spoke into his radio only moments after the ship was in normal space.  
“My men have just left the ship and try to install the weapon. I’ll radio in as soon as they’re finished.”  
“Acknowledged.” Rush stored the radio away again, and kept an eye on Nemesis which came closer quickly.  
Minutes passed, and then Eli shouted, “the alien ship is in visual range.”  
Rush looked immediately out of the window, and in the next moment he could see a tiny fleck of light in the distance. Probably the phenomenon of dropping into normal space. A few moments later he could see a dark spot that became larger every second, and took on the shape of a gigantic battleship.  
“Colonel?” he asked again.  
“Now, Rush. Get us into that star. The shuttle with Scott and Greer is gone.”  
“Melody!” Rush nodded at his protégée, and she didn’t waste another second and piloted the ship into the corona.  
“The other ship will be in range within seconds,” Eli informed them.  
“I don’t think it was built to fly into a corona of a star,” Rush spread a bit of hope, but he should be wrong.  
“Collectors are coming up, we’re entering the star,” Melody said.  
In the next moment _Destiny_ started to shake.  
“Nemesis is within weapon range. The attack was deflected by our shields, but we need them for the radiation.” Eli explained hastily.  
“Lt. Scott, do you read?” Rush asked after he had opened a channel to the shuttle.  
“Yes, Dr. Rush. We’re behind Nemesis. It seems it didn’t notice us yet, it’s still pursuing _Destiny_.”  
“We’re aware of that. You need to distract it. Our shields will either protect us from the weapons fire or the radiation. In no case of both,” Rush made it clear. He knew what the possible consequence was, but there were more lives on _Destiny_ than in the shuttle. Not to mention that the ship was in danger.  
“I got you, Doc. We’ll see what we can do.”  
Eli was pretty shocked that Rush didn’t seem to have any scruples, and could so easily send people into their death, but he was wise enough to keep that for himself this time. He could see there was no other possibility. If Nemesis attacked once more the shields would fail, and they would be vaporized.  
To everyone’s surprise Nemesis didn’t attack anymore, although it had followed _Destiny_ into the star. Lt. Scott had fired at it, but the ship was simply ignoring them.  
“Dr. Rush, we tried, but we can’t follow it into the star,” he informed the scientist.  
“Alright, Lt. I think we’re safe for the moment. If I’m not mistaken Nemesis doesn’t intend to destroy _Destiny_. It just wants to purge it and knows about the situation of the shields.”  
“Let’s just hope you’re right,” was all Scott said. “We wait for you on the other side.”  
The doors opened, and Colonel Young entered the bridge.  
“Status,” he said, and Eli who was faster than Rush and felt the need to talk, brought the Colonel up to speed.  
Meanwhile Rush kept an eyes on the energy levels and was relieved when they reached 80%.  
“Miss Hansen, reactivate all systems. Maybe we need one or another,” Rush said when they emerged from the star and approached normal space again.  
Melody nodded, and the systems came back online.  
“Target the main weapon at Nemesis and fire when ready,” Young said to Rush.  
“It’s already in position, Colonel, but I doubt it will do any damage.”  
“We’ll see.”

The last minute passed, and finally the ship had refilled its energy and the collectors retracted.  
“I suggest we let the shuttle dock as quickly as possible and try to escape,” Rush said, who didn’t reckon they would be able to reload the ship.  
“No,” Young said. “We have the new weapon in position. If we can’t stop it now, we won’t succeed next time.” He simply ignored Rush who was about to shoot back, and addressed Eli instead.  
“Mr. Wallace, fire!”  
“Yes, Colonel,” the young man confirmed, and the battle began.


End file.
